What Nate Oats Thought was 'Selfish' in Alabama's Loss to Vanderbilt

The Crimson Tide nearly equaled its season low in made three-point baskets during Wednesday night's loss at Vanderbilt.

Jan 7, 2026; Nashville, Tennessee, USA; Alabama Crimson Tide head coach Nate Oats talks with forward Taylor Bol Bowen (7) as he comes off the court during the second half at Memorial Gymnasium. Mandatory Credit: Steve Roberts-Imagn Images | Steve Roberts-Imagn Images

Alabama men's basketball coach Nate Oats was not impressed with the No. 13 Crimson Tide's ball movement in its 96-90 defeat against No. 11 Vanderbilt. Alabama (11-4, 1-1 SEC) recorded a season-low nine assists and only converted on nine out of 40 attempts from three-point range.

"They [Vanderbilt] play really hard. They contest. They fly around. So, yeah, there's a reason that they're as good as they are defensively," Oats said after the loss. "I thought we got a little selfish. We didn't move the ball. We had guys that had teammates open on a one-more [pass] and decided not to move it."

Two Crimson Tide players, forwards London Jemison (0-for-6) and Taylor Bol Bowen (0-for-5) did not make one three-pointer despite taking five or more attempts. Alabama's scoring leader in the game, freshman Amari Allen, only connected on one shot from beyond the arc despite having a career-high 25 points. He was also the sole Alabama player with multiple assists (four).

The team's 22.5 percent connection rate on its three-point attempts was a new season low, beating out the UTSA game on Dec. 7 where Alabama shot the basketball 57 times from deep, hitting on 16 of them (28.1 percent). It avoided tying a season low on made three-pointers by one; the Crimson Tide hit eight in the season opener against North Dakota, and it was missing two players that night who hit multiple shots from three-point land on Wednesday: guards Aden Holloway and Latrell Wrightsell Jr.

Holloway and Wrightsell each made a trio of three-point shots against the Commodores (15-0, 2-0 SEC). Holloway has now scored 20-plus in all of Alabama's last three contests with his 22-point showing Wednesday. Star point guard Labaron Philon was 2-of-5 from beyond the arc but left the game early in the second half with cramps after scoring 18 points, and did not return.

"We didn't score it well enough because I didn't think we got as good of shots as we needed to get," Oats said. "We didn't move the ball like we needed to. We had nine assists on the game. Ball didn't move."

Alabama shot 18.2 percent from beyond the perimeter in the second half. Vanderbilt only lofted up half the number of overall three-point attempts that the Crimson Tide did, but was more efficient, connecting 35 percent of the time via seven makes. As was the case with Allen on the Alabama side, the Commodores' leading scorer, Tyler Tanner (29 points) put his individual total up with just one three-pointer.

The Crimson Tide will return home for its next game, facing unranked Texas on Saturday at 7 p.m. CT. Oats wants to see more out of his squad in that game; he mentioned the possibility of rematching the Commodores in the SEC Tournament in the spring, but there are a lot of matchups on the schedule until that time.

"We're gonna have to play a lot better than we did tonight to beat a lot of teams in our league," he said. "We gotta get back, regroup, get some guys healthy, put the Texas scout in, and then we're gonna have to give a lot better effort on Saturday."