Nate Oats Wants Fewer Turnovers Against a Stout Mississippi State Defense

After a grueling non-conference schedule for the Alabama Crimson Tide, head coach Nate Oats' fourth-year squad has its sights set on SEC play, and the pursuit of another conference title.

Alabama, ranked No. 8 in the latest AP Top 25, holds a 10-2 record entering league play boasting strong wins over the likes of No. 3 Houston and No. 25 North Carolina as well as others.

With No. 21 Mississippi State on the horizon, thopugh, Oats has found his team's greatest weakness in non-conference play to be turnovers.

"They're going to guard," Oats said of the Bulldogs. "Our offense is going to have to do a better job of taking care of the ball. They turn people over, turnovers have been an issue. It's been a huge point of emphasis. We have to do a better job with it and they're going to make it really hard on us."

So far this season, Alabama averaged 16.9 turnovers per game which ranks 351st in college basketball. Only 12 teams in the nation average more turnovers per game than the Crimson Tide.

The defense of the Bulldogs has been their strength throughout non-conference play. Per the analytics service KenPom, Mississippi State ranks fifth nationally in defensive efficiency. The Bulldogs allow just 52.6 points per game, which ranks third nationally.

Perhaps most threatening to the Crimson Tide, Mississippi State forces nearly 16 turnovers per game.

"We looked at all the different ways [we turn the ball over].There are a lot of different players and a lot of different ways we're doing it," Oats said. "It's not good, it's the worst thing going with our offense. We showed the players all the different ways we've done it. We showed them where we currently rank. We showed them we're 14th out of 14 SEC teams."

Oats knows the start this Alabama team has had brings higher aspirations and goals than teams of years past, and he reinforced the need to cut turnovers down to achieve those goals.

"We showed them where Final Four teams have been," Oats said. "Out of the last 20 Final Four teams, I think 15 of the 20 have been in the top-100 nationally in turnover rate. We showed them what we've got to do to get them to the top-100. It's going to take a significant amount of work, we're going to have to cut out about five turnovers per game, from about 17 to 12. We're going to try."

Some have attributed Alabama's turnover rate to the speed and tempo at which the Crimson Tide play, but Oats disagrees.

"We do play fast," Oats said. "We know sometimes playing fast comes with a few more turnovers, but at the rate we're turning it over, it can't come at that rate. We don't want them to get passive. We don't want to take their aggressiveness away but we've just got to be more intelligent with it. We don't want to drive into traffic, sometimes we need to make earlier passes, sometimes we're turning down shots and I think it's leading to turnover issues later in the clock."

Oats said he has used the Christmas break to go over with the team how to cut down on the turnovers.

"We're trying to do more individual film study," Oats said. "Guys don't start classes for another couple weeks so we've got more time where we can sit down individually with guys and go through film. We're trying to do everything we can to get it figured out. If we can get it figure out, our offense will be in a pretty good place."

Mississippi State has played a much less challenging schedule compared to Alabama thus far — ranking 283rd in ESPN's strength of schedule metric compared to Alabama's 10th — but Oats doesn't think that matters if Alabama can't execute.

"It doesn't matter if we're battle-tested or not," Oats said. "If you turn the ball over and feed them a lot it's going to be hard to win at their place. We've been in big games but you still have to do what you've got to do to win the games."

Alabama will get the chance to put its offense to the test once again against No. 21 Mississippi State on Wednesday at 8 p.m. CT in Humphrey Coliseum. The game in Starkville, Mississippi will be broadcast on SEC Network.

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