How Nate Oats' Graded Alabama's 'Maturity Test' Against Vanderbilt

TUSCALOOSA, Ala.— Nothing is a gimme in the SEC this year. If you don't come ready to play or overlook an opponent, you will lose. Alabama experienced it firsthand with a midweek home loss to Ole Miss last week, but the Crimson Tide proved in Tuesday night's win over Vanderbilt that it learned its lesson.

"Honestly, leading into the game of Ole Miss week, we had a little lighter practice, and it felt like we weren’t as locked in leading into the game that week," Alabama guard Mark Sears said. "And then come this week, after we handled success against Kentucky, he wanted to challenge us to not forget what we did last week at home when we came here."

Sears said Nate Oats gave his team a "maturity test" in practice. How would Oats grade that test for the performance against Vanderbilt in the 103-87 win? The former high school math teacher gave it a C.

"You give it like an A- in the first half, and then they failed the second half," Oats said after the game. "So if you average out a failing grade and an A-, you come up with a C I guess. First semester, second semester— we didn’t really get a final exam.

"I was disgusted with the second-half defense to be honest with you. I thought we came out of the game with a way better attitude, playing hard. I think we held them to a .82 (points per possession) in the first half, and then it jumped up to 1.3 in the second half. So .82 against a team like this is pretty good. First 20 minutes, I thought was great, but then I think it was a 1.3 in the second half, and that’s terrible.”

Alabama led 48-31 at halftime and only allowed the Commodores to connect on 12 field goals in the first half. But Vanderbilt didn't go down without a fight despite the large halftime deficit.

The Commodores cut Alabama's lead to 10 points with 15:47 left after a hot start from beyond the arc in the second half. Led by some high-effort plays by Mouhamed Dioubate, the Crimson Tide was able to quickly turn defense into offense on a 7-0 run that put the game seemingly back out of reach.

Alabama led by as many as 22 in the second half, but Vanderbilt cut it back down to eight points by the final media timeout with 2:54 left behind more successful 3-point shooting. The Commodores shot 10 of 19 from 3 in the second half.

"I feel like we came out and handled it good in some spurts of the game, but then we kind of went back to not being so mature," Sears said. "So that’s something we’ve still got to work on.”

Overall, Oats was pleased with the effort from the bench players and the offense. Alabama continued its run as the top-scoring team in the nation with its sixth 100-point performance. But his displeasure with the defensive effort, particularly in the seoncd half, was evident.

"Some of our other guys gonna have to pick up their defense for this team to be the level we we want it to be at," Oats said. "We're off tomorrow. We play Saturday. When we come back Thursday, some guys are going to have to decide how good they want to be, how much effort they want to give on the defensive end because the effort we had in the second half is not going to win us any championships this year."

No. 4 Alabama Basketball Defeats Vanderbilt, Keeps Pace with Top of SEC