The No. 5/6 Alabama Men's Basketball team picked up its first win of the conference schedule with a 107-79 win over the No. 12/ 10 Oklahoma Sooners, Saturday...
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The Crimson Tide start conference play 1-0 following a dominant performance at home
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – The No. 5/6 Alabama Men's Basketball team picked up its first win of the conference schedule with a 107-79 win over the No. 12/10 Oklahoma Sooners, Saturday night inside of a sold out Coleman Coliseum.
Mark Sears led the team in points (22) and assists (10), achieving a pair of milestones in the performance. Sears surpassed the 1500-point mark, becoming the 18th player in Crimson Tide history to do so, and reached the 300-assist mark as well.
Alabama (12-2, 1-0 SEC) had five other players in double-figures as well including
Labaron Philon's 16 points,
Grant Nelson (12),
Derrion Reid (11), along with
Aden Holloway and
Clifford Omoruyi matching with 10 apiece.
Saturday's win marked the largest margin of victory over a ranked opponent under head coach
Nate Oats and the largest since the 2004-05 season.
The Sooners (13-1, 0-1 SEC) were led by Jalon Moore's 20 points off 9-of-14 shooting to go with seven rebounds in 29 minutes
Head Coach Nate Oats Postgame Comments
"I thought our guys were pretty locked in tonight. I thought the start was good in the first half. I thought to start the game, we were really locked in on the defensive end. Jeremiah Fears, I think, only had one point at the half; he's been their leading scorer, so I thought our guys were ready to go on him. Defensively, we were much better, then fell off a little bit in the second half when we got a lead. It's one thing we have to work on is playing with an edge when we get a lead.
Offensively, getting the offensive rebounds, getting 22 out of the 40 available rebounds on our offensive end is pretty solid. I thought we took advantage of some of their smaller guards on the offensive boards. I thought our guards got in there and mixed it up pretty good. Offensively, we didn't turn it over much, we had nine.
"Mark had a double-double with 10 assists, I thought he really had the ball moving. You could really see his energy when his teammates were scoring, which is great. We need that out of him. He was more excited about getting 10 assists. I think you saw when he hit Holloway for the one three, that was his ninth and he was fired up. I was happy to see that because we talk about 'Mudita,' vicarious joy through others success. Mark was really happy for his teammates scoring particularly off his passes tonight."
"A lot of stuff to clean up, but a lot of positives on our first game. I think our non-conference schedule prepared us for these games and now we have to go on the road where we've been a little inconsistent. Really good first game though."