Nate Oats Shares Areas Alabama Can Improve from First Win

The Crimson Tide head coach pointed out a couple areas he'd like to see his team improve after the victory against Longwood.

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — The Alabama's Crimson Tide's season-opening win against Longwood was not a pretty one.

Yes, it dominated on the glass. 

Yes, Alabama managed to get to the rim almost at will.

Yes, the Crimson Tide won by 20 points (21 to be specific). 

However, there were a couple of key factors that the steam struggled with throughout the night at Coleman Coliseum.

First, the shooting was terrible from the perimeter. Alabama was 2-for-24 from the three-point line, and a lot of the attempts were uncontested. 

It seemed like the shooting lid would be taken off when Rylan Griffen hit a corner three-pointer in the first half, or when Noah Clowney knocked one down from the wing in the second half, but perimeter shot after perimeter shot continued to bounce off the rim.

"I think that's just us getting in the gym the next day and getting up shots," Brandon Miller said in the postgame press conference. "We make some, we miss some."

Griffen shared similar thoughts as his teammate, sharing how it's a part of the growing pains of a new group.

"We're still a new team," Griffen said. "This is most of our first time playing in front of an Alabama crowd on an Alabama court. We're just getting used to that, but we'll be fine."

The second area that needs major improvement is turnovers. Granted, it is a lot of new pieces, the freshmen are adjusting and it's early in the season. 

That said, 19 turnovers to Longwood's 10 wasn't great, especially when 10 of them came from the starting backcourt (Mark Sears and and Nimari Burnett each had five). 

"Some of them are just careless, dumb, I don't have an answer for them to be honest with you," Oats said about the turnovers. "Some other ones, I thought maybe 'You could've done a better job getting them ready to play against their pick-and-roll coverage.' They guard pick-and-roll a lot different than we guard it, so we have to get our scout team to play it that way.

Oats added that his team needed to calm down, and that while the goal is to play fast, that doesn't mean play rushed. The transition offense and pace will come, but "we gotta be able to take care of the ball while doing that," Oats finished.

The next game for the Crimson Tide will be Friday in Coleman Coliseum, as Alabama welcomes Liberty. Tipoff is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. CT.

See Also:

Jahvon Quinerly Named Preseason All-SEC by Coaches, Brandon Miller Second-Team

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