There's no doubt who is in charge of the Alabama basketball program. There's no fear of a player-run team and a coach not having control of his program when it comes to Tide hoops. Nate Oats is firmly in command and he's coaching this Alabama team as hard as he's coached a team during his six seasons at the helm in Tuscaloosa.
If you listen to Oats speak and you had no perception of what Alabama's record was, I think you'd be surprised to note the Tide is 17-3 overall and 6-1 in SEC play. Alabama has a sterling record, but they have not yet played up to the potential that made them a sexy pick to win the national championship in the preseason.
Fifth-year senior guard Mark Sears - the preseason National Player of the Year - has not reached the lofty expectations many had for him. He hasn't been as good as he was a year ago when he led the Crimson Tide to the first Final Four in school history.
Rutgers transfer Cliff Omoruyi hasn't been the dominating presence at the five that Alabama was missing from last season's team. He's been good, and an upgrade over Nick Pringle, but not quite at the level that was expected. Alabama's defense has taken a sizable leap from last season, but it still isn't where it needs to be for the Tide to win a national championship.
There's been some unexpected injury-related issues that will keep us from seeing the fully-realized version of the roster Oats built. Latrell Wrightsell's season-ending injury was a devastating blow. Wrightsell was one of the most experienced guards on the roster and arguably the best shooter.
Pepperdine transfer Houston Mallette has barely played due to lingering knee issues from the offseason. USF transfer Chris Youngblood missed the first six games of the season due to an ankle injury in the offseason. Freshman Derrion Reid has now missed four games in a row and it remains to be seen whether he'll be back this week.
Rarely has it seemed Alabama has played to its potential this season. That hasn't stopped it from winning games against the likes of Houston, Illinois, Kentucky, or Texas A&M, but it will ultimately stop it from winning a league title or competing for a national championship.
It is why Oats is coaching this team so hard. It's why he made the bold move to bench Sears for the second half of the game against LSU. Not just as a message to Sears, but as a message to the whole team: if I'm willing to bench the best and most senior player on the roster for not playing with the effort I want to see, what do you think I'll do if you aren't playing hard?
If Sears isn't untouchable, nobody is.
To the credit of Sears, after spending the second half moping on the bench, he seems to be responding exactly the way you would hope:
"I thought Sears had an unbelievable practice today,” Oats said. “I thought the energy today – if everybody played as hard in the game as they did in practice today, I don’t think it would have been tied at the half. So can we get these guys to give max effort every single night out, every practice, every game?"
“If we can get there, we’ll be competing for championships. If not, we’re still a pretty good basketball team, but not the level I want us to be or I think that they want to be. So that’s the goal. We’ve gotta keep drawing it, gotta keep challenging them and get them to play their best basketball.”
Oats' comments came on the weekly "Hey Coach" radio show on Monday night. Oats has coached this team hard all season long, but he has certainly taken it up a notch recently. One look at Alabama's schedule makes it obvious as to why.
Alabama has 11 games left in the regular season. No team in the country has a more challenging stretch to end the season than the Crimson Tide. 10 of Alabama's 11 remaining games will be considered "Quad 1" games. Three of the next four games are on the road, and that's probably the easier part of the schedule for the Tide.
After that stretch, Alabama finishes up with seven straight games against opponents currently ranked in the AP Top 25 poll. That includes a three-game stretch to finish the season of at Tennessee, home vs. Florida, and at Auburn.
Oats knows for Alabama to not only survive that stretch but to be in position to win the SEC regular-season title, it'll have to be playing its best basketball, reaching a level we haven't yet seen.
“It would be nice if everybody pushed themselves to their limit on their own, but that’s not just human nature. It’s not mine either. … That’s part of our job, and we’ve gotta do a better job of pushing these guys and figuring out what makes them tick and get them to go as hard."
“But we’ve shown flashes, we’ve shown long signs of it. I still don’t think I’ve seen 40 minutes on both sides of the ball yet, but it’s coming. I think we’re getting a little bit better every game.”