Nate Oats is fed up with moral victories.

Alabama basketball now has two losses away from home to top-10 opponents. In its first true road test of the season, Alabama pushed No. 8 Creighton to the final buzzer. The Crimson Tide showed it can score without relying so heavily on 3-pointers by scoring 62 points in the paint.

That isn't enough for Oats.

Following Alabama's loss to Creighton, the head coach said the game reaffirmed to him and his team that Alabama can play with anybody, but the frustration comes in what Oats described as a "lack of winning plays."

Oats once again referenced the metrics, several of which reflect that the Crimson Tide has a top-five offense in the country. However, as Oats describes, being outstanding on one end of the floor doesn't put Alabama in the position it expects to be against top-tier opposition.

"We're right there," Oats said. "Our offense is efficient enough, our defense stinks right now and we don't make enough winning plays."

Oats went on to list several examples of the Crimson Tide's defense failing to get stops when it needed to during Saturday's game and called the period between the eight and four minute mark of the game a "disaster." Alabama was outscored 11-3 during that stretch.

During Alabama's last two games, its defensive lapses, issues with fouling and inability to cash in at the free-throw line were exposed by Purdue and Creighton. For Oats, eliminating errors in those departments when a game reaches crunch time will help Alabama turn these results into wins.

"We've got to make winning plays," Oats said. "When its winning time, you get down to the last eight minutes of the game and it's a tight game you got to figure out and get some stops and some rebounds, good quality shots on the other end and we're not doing that right now."

The Crimson Tide would be a lot worse for wear if its last two games ended in blowouts. Alabama's results against the Jays and Boilermakers show that it can, as Creighton coach Greg McDermott said, become a team that finishes top-16 seed in the NCAA Tournament.

The win-loss column, however, shows a team that is 6-4 with a chance to drop another game against a powerhouse opponent when Alabama faces No. 1 Arizona on Sunday.

Oats isn't hitting the panic button. He went 1-2 the last time Alabama faced three teams ranked in the top 10 consecutively during the 2021/22 season. Against Arizona however, Oats doesn't want to see another close loss.

Alabama's offense has proved it is capable of making up for errors enough to be within 10 points of beating top-10 teams. Now, Oats wants to see Alabama take that leap and put a complete game together that turns an impressive road loss into a massive, résumé-boosting victory ahead of conference play.