Oats: "I thought we had a group in there to close the game well that played well on defense."

Oats pointed out that Labaron Philon almost had a triple-double.

Grant Nelson said Mark Sears subbed himself out tonight while he was watching other guards play well.

Philon: "Mark wasn't on the floor but his leadership was still there... I'm really proud of his leadership."

Philon on his strong start to the season: "Don't try to be a hero and just make the right plays every possession."

Video of Oats' postgame press conference also available here.

Who: No. 8 Alabama vs. No. 25 Illinois

When: 8 p.m. CT, Wednesday, Nov. 20

Where: Legacy Arena, Birmingham, Alabama

Watch: SEC Network (Play-By-Play: Tom Hart, Analyst: Jimmy Dykes)

Listen: Crimson Tide Sports Network | SIRIUS/XM 134/201 (play-by-play: Roger Hoover, analyst: Bryan Passink)

I've got coverage from legacy arena. Alabama looking for a bounceback win. Let's rock.

Here's what Nate Oats said about Alabama's win from a confidence standpoint, and what area the Tide need to continue improving on as it prepares for Houston.

Imagine thinking there would be a game Alabama would score 100 and Mark Sears wouldn’t score at all. That is wild.

Overall, I thought Alabama played well, not great. They went through spurts of being able to hit everything and spurts of not hitting anything. The defense was also wildly inconsistent. Give Illinois credit, they hit some good and tough shots throughout the game. Will Riley had a solid game and he was someone Alabama wanted at one time. They ended up taking a guy named Labaron Philon. Maybe you heard of him.

Philon, Aden Holloway, and Aiden Sherrell all had fantastic games being the newcomers. The night belongs to Grant Nelson carrying Alabama to an early double digit lead and stacking on top of that in the first half. After half time, it was the incredibly talented backcourt who took over.

This was a great bounce back game against a very quality opponent. Now they need to hope to go 2-1 next week and they’re still on schedule in this brutal non conference stretch. Mark Sears has not played well all season, but he’s about to break out in a big way. When he does, this team is going to be fantastic.

It takes a pretty special team to drop 100 on its opponent with its best player being held scoreless.

Instant takeaways from Legacy Arena:

Oats and the two players spoke to reporters after the Crimson Tide's 100-87 win over Illinois.

Oats

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Mark Sears was the only player who didn’t score in Alabama’s blowout win. It was the first time he's been held scoreless since Nov. 27, 2020, in his freshman season at Ohio.

Coincidentally, that game was also against Illinois. Ohio lost 77-75.

Alabama's supporting cast stepped up massively tonight.

I think the playoff committee just found the 1st major flaw in the system! Boise State getting a bye as 1 of the 4 "highest ranked" conference champs is a F'n joke! There is no way in hell the Mountain West conference champions deserve a bye over the BIG 4 conference champs (SEC, ACC, BIG 10, BIG 12)! Conferences are not created equal and I think they need to have the BIG 4 conference champs recieve bye's and chose the highest ranked "small" conference school to be that 12th team and allow them to be ranked anywhere from 5-12! Because if we are being honest the 12 team playoff could easily be 6-7 SEC teams, 3-4 BIG 10 teams, and 1 team from both the ACC and BIG 12!🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️

I wonder if he put 100k on 3-4 other teams?
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I'll just leave this here for your perusal....

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Mo Linguist discussed Zavier Mincey and Zabien Brown's impact Wednesday.

Just noticed we have zero of the top 10 in state kids. Unsure how I feel about this but it's certainly not something we are accustomed to seeing. And don't jump in with "NIL" - we have as much or more NIL $ than anyone.

I'm interested in hearing from recruiting gurus on the board - is this a weak class? Are we intentionally choosing/spending it elsewhere? Is auburn suddenly a recruiting powerhouse?

Honest mistake or they are peeking ahead?
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I know we handled them last week but was/LSU that good? I hope we can continue to improve and win out. But I still feel we have a lot of things to improve on

Four-star WR Caleb Cunningham has officially flipped his commitment from Alabama to Ole Miss. This had been trending for the past few days. Cunningham was in Oxford, Mississippi for the Rebels win over Georiga and visited there and other schools on top of Alabama. Cunningham made it clear throughout his recruitment that he was always going to take other trips and the Rebels did a good job to sway him to stay in-state

Cunningham isn't expected to sign until February but Alabama isn't going to wait around on a final decision. They did a good job with Cunningham but ultimately Ole Miss came out on top. The Tide is only taking two wide receivers in this class and is already recruiting another target (Naeshaun Montgomery) aggressively. Montgomery will be on campus for an official visit this weekend.

More from @samspiegelman on Cunningham's flip.

What are there strengths & weaknesses?

Sooners have a rich tradition why are they a 500 club this year? They will be rested & ready to spoil Alabama’s playoff chances.

Nick Sheridan, Jalen Milroe and JaMarcus Shephard have all been impressed with Caleb Odom's growth this year as he looks to be a big part of the equation for Alabama.

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Rivals is updating the offensive position rankings. Here's where Alabama commits rank (updated throughout the day):

Akylin Dear is the No. 3 running back in 2025. Dear had a strong season with Quitman (Miss.) High School. Stats (in eight games): 148 carries for 1062 yards, 6 touchdowns.

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In case you were wondering, former Alabama RB commit Turbo Rogers is ranked as the No. 2 all-purpose back in the class.

Achilles tendon tear…he was having a good season for OSU.

The Alabama receivers and DBs coach spoke to reporters Wednesday.

Shephard

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