Nate Oats was looking for a shooter. He ended up with much more.

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Upon taking the job at Alabama last March, the first-year head coach wasted no time shaping the program to fit his fast-paced, spread-out attack. Less then three weeks after his hiring, he made his first major move, securing a verbal commitment from West Virginia graduate transfer James “Beetle” Bolden.

“I thought we needed shooting,” Oats said Monday. “I mean he was one of the best shooters in the country over his first three years at West Virginia. I also wanted to get some toughness about us, and I thought he brought that in.”

Bolden averaged 39.9 percent from beyond the arc during his time at West Virginia. While that might have been the first thing to catch Oats’ eye, the point guard’s true value for the Crimson Tide has come outside the stat book.

Entering his final home game at Alabama, Bolden’s numbers are as unassuming as his 6-foot, 160-pound frame. He is averaging a humble 8.1 points per game with just two starts in 25 appearances. However, Oats’ “blue-collar” metrics reveal why he has become one of the cornerstones of the Crimson Tide’s yeoman approach on the court.

Developing under West Virginia head coach Bob Huggins, Bolden arrived at Alabama well-versed in the demanding defense Oats wanted to implement in the Crimson Tide. This season, the graduate senior has served as a spark plug for the Crimson Tide, ranking second on the team with 18 charges and third with 18 floor dives despite making just two starts over 25 games.

“He’s hard-playing, tough,” Oats said. “I mean you see the plays he makes. He’s the lightest kid on the team, but he sticks his nose in there whenever he can.”

As Bolden sees it, that’s his role on this year’s team — one he’s happy to take on.

“To bring energy,” Bolden said. “To be that spark plug off the bench. Just to bring confidence to my guys, lift them up when they’re down. Just be the leader that I have been and just use my experience to my advantage and teach these young guys what it means to be out there in crunch time and continue to stay together.”

The spark-plug role is nothing new for Bolden. The pint-sized dynamo has typically been one the smaller players on all his teams and lives by the motto of “heart over height.”

“Just being bigger than what you actually are out there on the court,” Bolden explained. "Having a bigger heart, being able to fight with people that you might be outmatched with, outsized. You’ve just got to dig down and have that dog in you.”

Bolden was born premature and received the nickname of “Beetle” from his grandmother as a tribute to the strength he demonstrated despite his size. That strength was developed on and off the court as Bolden faced plenty of adversity growing up poor in Covington, Ky.

“Coming from there just taught me a lot to keep my faith when everything’s not going well,” Bolden said. “Just to continue to work and trust in God, God’s plan.”

Bolden tore his ACL during his first season at West Virginia, forcing him to take a redshirt. During his third season with the Mountaineers, he sustained an ankle injury last year which cut his season short in February.

Bolden has continued to take on his fair share of bumps and bruises at Alabama this season, suffering hand and wrist injuries while dealing with a gastrointestinal illness that caused him to drop 10 pounds. However, the gritty guard shrugged off the hardships Monday, chalking them up to “the college basketball grind.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen Beetle down a day since he’s been here,” said forward Javian Davis, Bolden’s roommate at Alabama. “He’s always uplifting, always high. I’ve never seen him down. So I feel like he always kept positive energy around us and around the team and coaches.”

Davis, who suffered a knee injury that resulted in him redshirting his first year on campus last season, said he has come to Bolden for advice in the past. Plenty of Alabama’s other young players have also come to the graduate transfer for guidance in order to help find their footing at the college level.

“He’s meant a lot to me,” Davis said. “He’s my roommate, so I talk to him every day. We laugh and joke every day. He’s a good big brother to me. He always talks to me and the team every day, so I feel like he’s a good leader and good senior for us.”

Alabama (16-13, 8-8 in the SEC) will honor Bolden as its lone senior during Senior Night on Tuesday as the Crimson Tide holds its final regular-season game inside Coleman when it takes on Vanderbilt (9-20, 1-15) at 7:30 p.m. CT.

When asked to reflect on his lone season at Alabama, Bolden described his time in Tuscaloosa as “the most fun I’ve had in a while.” He and the Crimson Tide will look to prolong that fun for as long as they can as the team aims to go on a run to keep its slim NCAA Tournament hopes alive.

"Just going down as leaving it out there every time I step out there on the court," Bolden said of his legacy at Alabama. "No matter if it's a good or bad game, win or loss. I just want to go down as the player that whenever I stepped out there I gave it my all."

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