Alabama's Defense 'Locked In' For Best Performance of the Year

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. -- No. 23 Alabama bounced back into the win column with a 90-64 victory over Missouri as the Crimson Tide took a strong step forward on the defensive end.

Missouri's 64 points were the third fewest the Tigers scored all season, and the lowest output a high major opponent scored against Alabama this year, improving on the 72 the Crimson Tide allowed the Maryland Terrapins in the Players Era Festival.

"The theme tonight was defense, just focus on getting stops, playing in the flow," Nate Oats said. "I think we need to keep that the theme. That's a lot easier said than done. Florida's pretty good coming up here Sunday, but tonight was good. We'll celebrate tonight's win at least until tomorrow morning when we start to look at Florida."

The Crimson Tide forced 13 turnovers, held Missouri to just 39-percent shooting from the floor and a putrid 19-percent from beyond the 3-point line.

"I think we were as locked into the scouting report, film study," Oats said. "Really guys paying attention, shooters, non-shooters. Look, they had the one kid, [TO] Barrett that I think is a really good player, but he's made two threes all year and none in SEC play, and he threw two in tonight. So I just told [Aden] Holloway, 'Don't even worry about it, you're doing a great job, exactly what we're telling you to do'. We felt like we were helping off the appropriate guys.

"It was the first game all year that [Trent] Pierce hasn't made a three. I'm not saying it was all our defense, but I thought we did a pretty good job being locked into the guys who could shoot, who couldn't shoot. I thought they were able to score inside. Mitchell's a four that's really been able to feast on some smaller fours and just drives it and overpowers guys. Well, he can't do that to Aiden Sherrell very well. So having the luxury of having two bigs, which helped us, I thought, defensively, quite a bit."

Oats shifted his lineup against the Tigers, moving Aiden Sherrell to the four and inserting Charles Bediako in at the five. Sherrell responded by limiting Mark Mitchell to just 11 points and swatting two shots to lead the team in blocks.

"BA [Brian Adams], he puts a lot of emphasis on defense," Sherrell said. "We dialed into the game plan and went out there and executed it very well. That's our mentality going forward. Defensive stops, that's the first thing."

Missouri shot a putrid 8-of-23 from the free throw line for the most glaring deficiency in the game. The Alabama defense perpetuated the shooting problems, limiting the Tigers to just 4-of-23 from beyond the 3-point line to get back in the win column.

The Crimson Tide moved into the top-60 in defensive efficiency with the performance. Oats reflected on the reason for such a strong performance in the aftermath of the win.

"Preparation," Oats said. "I think our guys really, we were 3-3. Nobody signed up to play here and be .500 in SEC play. That's not who we are. That's not the program they walked into. We're averaging 14 SEC wins a year over the last three years. Everybody needed a wakeup call, including myself. However we were doing it wasn't working.

"So we spent a lot more time on our preparation, a lot more mandatory, gotta get in here and study film. We needed to earn the win before the game started. I don't feel like we've been doing that in the past. Tonight, we earned this win before the game started. So can we keep our guys locked in mentally, focused on video in walk throughs and prep like we had going into this one? That's going to be the key. I think we can. It's going to take some leadership from the guys, some of our older veteran guys. Houston [Mallette], [Latrell] Wrightsell, Labaron's [Philon] extremely smart, needs to lead this group. I thought he was better going into this game. [Charles] Bediako brings a veteran presence. He walked in and knew the game plan, even the Tennessee one, literally two days, he had it down. I thought he was great tonight. So I think the leaderships got to continue to step up and make sure our guys are really focused and locked into the intensity and preparation, and you've got to have an intensity and effort in the game to do it."