No. 5 Alabama defeated South Carolina 88-68 on Wednesday night in Columbia. Head coach after the Crimson Tide’s first SEC road win of the season Nate Oats spoke to reporters at Colonial Life Arena. Below is everything Oats said after Alabama’s road win.

Oats’ opening statement…

“It was a good first road game for us in the SEC. I thought our guys responded pretty well to the bell. We got out of the gate well early. Mark was really good early on. I think he scored or assisted on 17 of our first 25. He appeared to be a player of the year candidate early in the game. And I thought they did a pretty good job of keeping him flustered a lot, especially early in the second half.

“I thought our defense was a lot better than before for the entire 40 minutes. I didn’t like the start of the second half. We had bad starts, especially when we were ahead. So we made a small change. I thought the intensity picked up and we were able to keep the lead to some extent. I’m not sure how close they got in the second half, but I thought we did a good job of keeping them at bay most of the time.

“To be honest, I thought Mo Dioutbate’s defense against Murray-Boyles was one of the big keys in the game. A lot of people have him in the first round of the draft. He shot 1-for-6 tonight, only had six points, and I thought Dioubate did a great job guarding him. Mos scored a plus-19 in the 17 minutes he played. He really has a big impact on the game. I was happy with his performance.

“We got a lot of good efforts from a lot of people. So a good away win for us. I know they let Mare down, which obviously helped us. But things happen, and sometimes we have to take advantage of those things.”

Oats on more about Mo Dioubate’s play on defense…

“He’s a tough kid. I wasn’t happy with the flagrant foul (against Oklahoma). It just wasn’t a smarter game. It was a turnover, so it should be our ball. They get two free throws and the ball. So he lost a few minutes in that game, quite a few minutes in fact, but he had a great practice coming off the bench. And then we got his head straightened out and got ready to go tonight. I thought he would be a really good partner for Murray-Boyles.

“He’s super strong. You can’t move it very well. I think maybe the last thing Collin did that night was just throw it all out. He couldn’t move Mo at all. It’s long. He moves well. He’s tough. So he’s had a great week of training and we’re trying to get him more minutes. And he had a great match tonight. He’s a guy who, when we don’t play hard enough, brings toughness. That’s what he does and he accomplished it tonight, especially on the defensive end protecting their best scorer.”

Hafer puts the starters on the bench at the start of the second half…

“It definitely built up. We had terrible starts to the second half, especially when we had a lead. It’s like they’re making themselves comfortable or just playing around with it. That’s not how we do it here. We play every possession, no matter what the score is. We’re trying to get stops. I mean, I think they started off on a 9-6 run. Avoid layups in transition. We just didn’t look like we were ready for the second half and I’ve seen that too many times and I’ve had enough of it. So we substituted and then that wasn’t quite good enough. The next group gave up a transition bucket, and then we called the timeout, and I fixed everything after that.”

Oatmeal about Alabama’s ability to get the ball to the rim…

“We distribute people. In the end we only had 19 threes, not as many as we would have liked. We shot 55 in a game this year. We’re still where we are nationally at 3 points per game. I think we’re somewhere in the top 5. So people are aware that we like taking photos. You can spread them out a bit. Specifically, they’re focusing on Sears, like they did tonight. Large driving gaps arise. We have strong, tough and physical riders – Dioubate, Jarin Stevenson. Derrion Reid drove it to the rim today, Grant Nelson. You kind of go through that list. It’s kind of going downhill, so the guys go downhill, clearing the lanes.

“We do a kind of analytics box score. We had each other between 21 and 33 on the edge. That’s why we make do with a lot of non-rim twos. Holloway is pretty skilled. He took a few – I was good with all of them except the last one. But we’re trying to get downhill, get to the rim and get to the free throw line. It would have been better if we had made a few free throws tonight. That was a disaster for us. But everything else was nice – it definitely wasn’t one of our better offensive games, but it was good enough to win tonight. But that’s definitely one of the things we like to do: get the ball downhill to the rim. I don’t know how many dunks we had tonight – six. Go to the edge with some force.”

Oatmeal on what causes the free throw shooting problems…

“I won’t take any calls. This is not something that can be done cleverly. So I don’t know what it was. I thought we were driving into the edge. I don’t know. Sears is usually pretty good at getting things done. I mean, he shot 13 last game. He only shot five in that game. Some of our guys became a little less aggressive, maybe because we were missing them. They didn’t want to go. But I thought we were going downhill. Some of these people are difficult to manage. I don’t know. I don’t have a good answer until I go back and look at this again. Or I didn’t think the administration was so bad. I always claim to call something here or there, but yeah, I would have to look at the tape and see why I think we didn’t get as far as we should have.”

Oats on neutralizing the opposing team’s biggest threat in consecutive games…

“Coach Adam did a great job. I think he’s really good. He’s been in the NBA for most of his career and of course at that level you have to have a game plan for the best players in the world. So I think he’s doing a good job. I think it also speaks to the fact that we have some guys this year who take personal pride in their defense. In the last game, I think Labaron Philon did a really good job on Fears. Jarin Stevenson is 6-10 years old and can move his feet athletically. The work he did with RJ Davis, the reps he had with Fears. And then when they grew up, I think Cliff did well. I mean, Cliff had to figure out our system, but he did it well.

“And then when they get an undersized post-up guy like Murray-Boyles – and he’s really good. He’s obviously played very well in this league over the last few years. Mo Diobuate also takes great pride in his defense. I think we have different guys, be it Labaron, Mo Derrion Reid takes a lot of pride in stopping guys. We didn’t do a good job with Ace Bailey, but when Derrion came in, he did a pretty good job with him. That’s why we played against some of the best players in the country this year. We had different people step up who wanted the job, which is good as a coach, and then stepped up and actually did the job pretty well.”

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