Opening statement…
“I thought it was a great way to respond. I respect Vanderbilt a lot so it was kind of unfortunate for them that they were the team that followed up the Oklahoma game, but I told our guys, ‘We kind of shown who we are and I think we're tough, hard-nosed, blue collar, gritty team. Vanderbilt's tough, I mean we showed a little highlight film of Vanderbilt's tough plays before the game This is a game where if we're going to try to be the tougher team we kind of told our guys, ‘Nationally we're being questioned is soft, the team’s with a decent bigs been able to go to work on us a little bit.’ I thought Charles (Bediako) did a great job when on Oscar Tshibwe but there's been a few that have gotten to work on us. Got out-rebounded by Oklahoma was not a great rebounding team. I think they answered the bell, they get the message today. They really coached each other over the last three days, to be honest. They are a great group that kind of talked amongst themselves, this is who we want to be, this is what we’ve got to do to get better. They did just about all of it tonight and we were obviously aided by good shooting night and they didn't shoot it well if that happens too. That's why the margin of victory as big as it was, but I told our guys ‘Can can we be good enough? Can we be tough enough on defense? Can we be good enough rebounding team to win?’ I think we can, that's that's the goal and I think we for the most part played pretty hard and locked into the defensive end tonight. It’s good to see the improvement. It's definitely not gonna go like that for the rest of the year. We know that. There’s gonna be teams that go on fire, we're gonna have to make adjustments but it was great to see some guys start to play a little better for us. I’m so happy for Nimari (Burnett) I feel like he's coming back around. We've seen him shoot it like that in practice plenty it’s great to see him shoot it like that in the game. Brandon (Miller) got back on track a little bit. (Noah) Clowney it’s good to see a 3-pointer go in for him. I think he went 2 of 4 tonight so I’m happy for everybody. (Mark) Sears had six assists in the first half alone which I believe is the season-high for him. We kind of go down the line. A lot of guys played really well for us. I’m happy for the guys, now we got to regroup and go get a road win at LSU.”
Benny’s Breakdown: Alabama needed a response after the drubbing it took at the hands of Oklahoma on Saturday. In what may be regarded as one of the team’s worst performances in the Nate Oats era, the Crimson Tide found a way to right every perceivable wrong against Vanderbilt just three nights later. That includes rebounding where Alabama out-rebounded the Commodores 45-33 thanks in large part to Charles Bediako. Oats criticized Bediako’s play in his opening statement after the game for his recent string of performances culminating in a woeful outing in Norman. The sophomore recorded just four points and two rebounds in eight minutes of play. The showing wasn’t good enough against Oklahoma which marked the fourth time Bediako played 15 minutes or less in the last five games. However, Tuesday was the return of the team’s rim protector which resulted in a nice boost in his playing time to boot, finishing with 20 minutes in the win.
On the team’s hot shooting night…
“I think it's one of those deals where we tell our guys frequently, just lose yourself in the game, and the offense will take care of itself. The more you worry about whether your shots going in or how many shot attempts you get, to me that stuff backfires. When you make shots, you get in the gym and work your tail off going into the game, We had all of our guys getting in extra time with assistant (coaches). We're not practicing long now, we're only going about an hour and a half so you get a four hour window every day between video, practice and weights. We were only using two and a half hours or something so guys had extra time. They all got in with assistants yesterday afternoon and got in extra shots. Not to say that's going to happen every time we get in with the assistants, but the assistants did a great job of making sure our guys between classes got extra shots up. Then in when the game started it was all about locking into defense, making tough plays, lose yourself in the game, trust your work that you put in. Guys put a lot of time in the gym and shots dropped. It's amazing how that works.”
Benny’s Breakdown: The last line there from Oats made me chuckle. Even when Alabama wins by 57 points, the head coach still tosses out a zinger directed at his players for its awful performance on the road a few nights ago. The extra reps in the gym paid off in spades as Alabama set new season-highs in field-goal percentage and 3-point percentage. The best part is multiple players, not named Brandon Miller, contributed to the offense. With five players scoring in double figures — Miller (22), Bediako (10), Rylan Griffen (12), Noah Gurley (11) and Nimari Burnett (16) — Alabama truly showed how versatile it can be on offense.
On how his message after the Oklahoma game resonated with the team…
“You saw the way we played. You think it resonated? Yeah, I think it resonated. Look, I’m not one of those guys that just comes in and loses my mind. It was more we came in, we watched the film. After we got done watching the breakdowns – and they were not pretty – I left it up to them. ‘What’s wrong? What do we gotta do better? It’s your team. We’re all gonna be coaching a while. This is the only time you guys are together. What do you guys wanna be about? Are we there? We’re not there. How do we get there? Can we get our edge back?’ They went through a whole list. I wrote them on the board. ‘Alright, let’s be about this.’ Just simple things like practice harder, and I thought our practices were a lot better. Typically, we would have given them Sunday off. We actually practiced Sunday night for about an hour. Yesterday, I thought the intensity was great, talking while you’re out there. Talking’s a big thing in basketball. It keeps you glued together on the defensive end. We haven’t been doing a very good job of it. We talked a lot more. Just a lot of simple things that they felt like they needed to do better, and I thought we did a lot better. Let’s see if we can’t keep our edge without taking losses. If we can be mature enough, we realize what works and you continue to do what works without taking a loss.”
Benny’s Breakdown: For the first time since it arguably climbed into the top five of the Associated Press and USA Today coaches polls, Alabama came out with the intensity of a team looking for something to prove. During his Monday press conference, Oats said he felt the team “lost it edge” against the Sooners, prompting sweeping changes to the team’s schedule as it prepared for Tuesday. It seemed to not only refocus the group but it was another moment where the team grew closer as a unit which shined through on defense. You don’t allow 44 points on 16 of 64 shooting if you don’t play as a cohesive unit on the floor. Alabama did just that against Vanderbilt.
On what was his favorite part about how his team improved after the loss…
“It was how hard they played. The other stuff takes care of itself. You can control your effort. We tell guys all the time. You can control your attitude, your preparation, you effort. And then look, sometimes shots drop, sometimes they don’t. It was great to see shots drop, but that’s not where – if we’d have played this hard and shot 18 percent from three, I’d have been good with it. I feel like we would have still won because we were playing that hard. We would have got second-chance points. We would have got on the O boards. The margin would have been a lot less, but no, for us right now, it’s all about how hard we play and how much do we prepare and are we locked in on the defensive end of the floor. Do we know what the scouting report is? Are we guarding the actions the right way? And are we playing as hard as we need to play? When we do that, if we lose because we just couldn’t make shots, we can live with that. We can’t live with not playing hard, though.”
Benny’s Breakdown: Now comes Alabama’s next challenge after a big win — consistency. During the team’s nine-game winning streak, we watched the Crimson Tide lose focus and more inconsistent with each passing game which resulted in the team’s first loss in more than a month. Now Alabama will need to bottle up this performance and take it to Baton Rouge to face an LSU team that is struggling as of late. After falling to Alabama by 40 points, the Tigers lost its next four games and will look to break the losing spell on Wednesday at Missouri.
On which players stepped up in leading the intensity in practice…
“JQ talked about two years ago. He was on that team when we lost to Oklahoma, what we needed to do. I thought he talked a lot in that meeting. But honestly, a lot of guys talked. We had freshmen talked. Brandon stepped up and talked. Noah Clowney. I love Noah Clowney. He’s got a way about him. He has no problem addressing stuff that needs to be addressed. Multiple guys. Nimari stepped up and talked in the meeting. But as far as getting guys in the gym, we’ll see where that goes. Right now, it’s mandatory. The assistants got the guys in the gym because we get up to four hours a day. We didn’t give them an option. So every kid had to get in with an assistant. Each assistant took four players each and they got in extra work because we had the extra hour. We’re gonna continue to do that for a while. We’re gonna make sure we’re smart and not overwork them because we wanna be peaking in March, not at the end of January. But we felt like we needed to get in, get some skill level down. We had guys not making shots. We worked on some little fundamental stuff, being in balance, all that stuff. I give the assistants a lot of credit getting in the gym with those guys.”
Benny’s Breakdown: Alabama seems to be finding leadership at every opportunity. It’s one thing to have your seniors get up in front of the team to try and right the ship. It’s a whole other impressive sight to see freshmen make themselves heard. Also for it to be Miller and Clowney shows just how bought in the entire group is to winning and how the Crimson Tide is going to do so. Alabama still has plenty of tests it will need to pass en route to March, but the Crimson Tide is off to a great start after its bounce-back win over Vanderbilt.
alabama.rivals.com
alabama.rivals.com
