What Nate Oats Has 'Right Up at the Top' of His List to Improve During Bye Week

Alabama escaped Norman with an 83-81 win over the Sooners Saturday afternoon. It could have been a much more comfortable win for the Crimson Tide if it hit its free throws at a high rate.

On the season, Alabama is a 76 percent free throw shooting team. Prior to the Oklahoma game, the team's previous worst free throw performance came against Gonzaga when the Tide shot 60.9 percent on 23 attempts. Alabama did worse than that on Saturday, shooting 15-of-26 (57.7 percent.)

The end of the game became a free throw shooting contests with both teams fouling either to extend the game, or to keep the other team from being able to take the lead on a shot from the floor.

At one point, Alabama was 8-of-17 from the free throw line but did make seven of its last nine attempts during the crucial final minutes of the game.

"To me, you got to get locked into winning the game," Alabama head coach Nate Oats said after the game. "Like when you're skilled, you’re talented and you’re locked into making winning plays, you go to the line, and you make free throws. Like, you spend enough time in the gym that you're not overthinking i Free throws are the one thing in the game of basketball that there's zero variance to other than the variance you put in your own mind. If you put enough time in the gym and turn yourself into a dang near machine that you're doing the same thing every time at the line, you just step up and you make them."

Alabama will have lots of time to work on free throws this week as the Crimson Tide has its midweek bye and will not play again until next Saturday, Jan. 24 against Tennessee at home.

"We’ve got to get our guys in the gym," Oats said. " We’ve got a week off. They gotta get in the gym. They got to spend more time. They got to earn the right to make the free throws by putting the time in. And they’ve got to earn the right by being about the right stuff. We obviously weren't about the right stuff to start this game, and I think that translated to us not making free throws when we needed to, because we weren’t making them in the first half when we weren’t locked in to playing both sides of the ball. So we’ve got to get better at a lot of things, and that's right up at the top.”

Leading scorer Labaron Philon came into Saturday's game as 76 percent free throw shooter on the season but finished 4-of-9 against Oklahoma. At one point in the second half, he missed three straight free throws; however, he did make his final free throw to complete a critical and-1 with 20 seconds left that put the Tide up 79-74.

"Obviously, he’s got to make his free throws," Oats said of Philon. "And he’s as upset as anybody with it because he’s a competitor, so I'm sure he'll be in the gym quite a bit over the next week.”

Philon was huge for Alabama down the stretch with 23 total points, 17 of which came in the second half. He will need to be better at the free throw line against elite teams.

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