Alabama coach Nate Oats spoke to reporters following the Crimson Tide’s 111-73 victory over No. 24 Mississippi State. The Tide has won two games in a row after a two-game skid and will face No. 5 Tennessee on the road in its next matchup.

Here’s everything Oats said.

“That was a little bit better start than what we had had. I think it was the first time we led at first media timeout since Arkansas. So, been stressing that — a little bit better sense of urgency to start the games. I thought Labaron’s sense of urgency to get stops on Hubbard was really good. That’s what we need out of Labaron every night. I thought he played great. He ended up with 10 and 5 with only two turnovers, but it’s one of those deals where you just get really locked into the right stuff and lose yourself in the game, the offense comes a lot easier. He shot 2 of 5 from 3. He contributed to the 22 3s he made.

I was happy with his defense, but there’s other guys that took their turn on Hubbard that did a pretty good job. I thought that Sears had some moments on him. He scored 21, but he got a lot of those late after we were up 30. I thought when the game was still undecided, particularly in the first half, he only had 6 and I liked our sense of urgency on defense. Labaron’s defensive leverage was a positive-19 and it showed because he did a really good job on their best player.

“I thought Youngblood was really locked in trying to get stops and hold guys accountable, and he was a positive-36 in his defensive leverage. I thought Cliff’s had a sense of urgency these last two games that was a little bit better than what he’s had. He was plus-21 on the defensive leverage. So you kinda look at the guys that were positive on the defensive end and see — Grant was positive. Sears was positive on the defensive end and that’s what we’re stressing. That’s what we’re really trying to get out of the guys and the the offense will take care of itself as long as we don’t turn it over and we get on the O-boards.

“I thought late we gave up too many O-boards, but we still ended up out-scoring them on second-chance points 21-15 and I thought our pace on offense, the way we moved the ball and took care of it. It obviously helps to make shots. We shot almost 50% from 3. That helps everything and you’re getting your defense set.

“We’ve tried to go a little lighter, get the guys’ legs back. Typically when we go Saturday-Tuesday, the off-day we’d have on the week would be Wednesday, tomorrow. But we gave them Sunday off. We tried to go pretty light yesterday and I think it’s paying off. Our guys legs are a little bit more fresh. Youngblood looked great. I thought Sears, Labaron – I thought Grant, not practicing yesterday with the shin bruise he had — I thought he looked great with his effort.

“All and all good win. Mississippi State’s a good team. It wasn’t their night tonight, but they’re, shoot, they’re still a tough team. We barely out-rebounded them on a night when we forced a lot of misses from them and there was a lot of rebounds to get. They still play hard. So I think this win is gonna go a long ways because they’ll bounce back and get some wins here soon I think.”

“We’re really good when he’s distributing like this. I’ve been telling you guys, he’s been playing his best basketball of his career on both sides. For him to have a positive defensive leverage, that hasn’t always been the case. When he just gets locked into getting stops, doing winning things, doesn’t care who scores — when it was getting close to 10, he really wanted to make sure he got 10. CY was telling him ‘You know who to find.’ So I don’t know if that assist to CY for the 3 was his 10th, but it was either his ninth or his 10th because that came after we had the timeout where CY said ‘You know who to find.’

“He was happy. He was happy CY scored 27. We talk about Mudita. I thought Sears was really happy for everybody else that was able to get in the scoring column and he was able to get some assists. We definitely will show highlights of this.

“What are we 9-0 in his entire career here, is that what it is? When he’s get at least how many assists? 7. So that’s the magic number. Just draw up a lot of plays to get Sears assists I guess moving forward. I think a lot of assists come in the flow though. Not necessarily designed, just attacking downhill, making the right reads.”

“I wasn’t happy with the defense in the second half. We’ve only had one game – I think you were the one who brought it up — that we had better defensive efficiency in the second half. That was the LSU one where we weren’t very good in the first half. So, we better be better in the second half. We weren’t better in the second half again today. And you can use the excuse it’s hard to play with a lead. If you’re immature it’s hard to play with the lead — hard on defense. If you’re mature and it’s about getting stops and you’re not playing the scoreboard you’re playing the guy across the line from you if you will — you’re trying to dominate them every possession. You’re not giving up free looks.

“I was a little perturbed, especially with the group there at the end it felt like they scored on us every possession to close the game out. I think they had 61 going into the final media and ended up scoring 12 in the last four minutes of the game. That’s not what we’re trying to do. So, yeah, we’ve gotta get a little bit better since of urgency playing with a lead.

“I told the guys, Georgia was up 25 on Florida tonight and Florida came back and cut it to two at one point. Oh, Florida took the lead. So there you have it. So they’re up 25 and Florida comes back and takes the lead. That’s why you can’t relax when you go up 20, 25, whatever it is. And that’s a huge win for Georgia but I was trying to tell our guys before the game… actually I told them at the half. I didn’t realize Florida had taken a lead, but we had a case in point tonight, you’ve got to take care of business when you get a team down. You gotta take a 20-point lead to 25, to 30, to 35 and we’ve buried teams here in the past and we’ve gotta get a little better killer mentality if you will to just put teams away when you’ve got a lead on them.

“And we weren’t bad, our offense did enough to keep them at good arm’s length the whole game, but our defense has to get a little bit better and Mark was right on that.”

“Yeah, we didn’t want him to touch it as much as possible. He torched us last time. He makes such tough shots and he’s gonna get them up if he gets the ball. Shoot, he got 22 shots up tonight. He’s gonna get them up when he touches the ball. So when he gives it up, don’t let him get it back and we tried to do a little more of that. Try to make him work for everything.

“Obviously it helped that he got in some foul trouble and didn’t play as many minutes in the first half as maybe he normally would. So, that helped with the six-point first half we held him to. But yeah we were definitely trying to not have him touch it as often as he did the last game.”

“That’s a good question. I’m not exactly — you know, they play hard on defense. Their system’s a little bit more designed to turn you over if you will. So, if you don’t turn it over you can get quality shots if you move it, and they’ve turned a lot of teams over. They played some zones in the second half. Zones tend to give up a lot of 3s. I think when the man wasn’t working they went zone or they were in foul trouble, either way I’m not sure why. But zones tend to give up more 3s. So that probably helped a little bit in the second half.

“And then we were able to get some 3s off our offensive rebounds too, which doesn’t really have much to do with the defensive philosophy. But, we were fortunate to get 45 up because we like to get them up and made 22. I think, what is this the fifth time we’ve made 20-plus 3s, one away from our own record. We had 23 at LSU and 22 at Auburn. So the third time we’ve had at least 22 and fifth time we’ve hit 20. So it’s not the first time we’ve done it. We’ve done this to other teams in the past as well.”

“We want all of our players to work on their game, to continue to develop their game and I think that’s the next step with Mo is being able to kind of play more of that spacing 4 where he can knock down shots. It’s gonna take a lot of work, but he’s in there working. He went 3 of 3 against Texas. He went 1 of 2 tonight. We want him taking good ones, like open catch-and-shoot 3s.

"So, that’s the thing with us. If you’re willing to get in the gym and work, go ahead and use what you’re working on in the gym. If he’s working his tail off shooting 3s and they’re gonna leave him open — Jarin had a pretty rough start to the year shooting 3s and we told him, just keep shooting every open shot he gets. Noah Clowney had a pretty rough stretch to start his freshman year here and shoot he knocked down four before the first media timeout there when he broke out of his slump.

“So, you know, Mo’s not to the level of shooter as Clowney or Jarin is, but we’re gonna work on it all offseason and hopefully he’s a much-improved shooter come next year. But even now he’s getting better. Shoot, went 3 of 3 one game, went 1 of 2 tonight.”

“Hubbard. 38. We don’t want him to just see clean looks coming off ball screens. So yeah, matchup-specific to the guy that dropped 38 on us last game."

“Yeah, I think it’s really helped him being in there with two of those other three a lot more. Labaron can create. I think, you look, Labaron and Mark had and Holloway, you look at the three of them — the three of those guys that kind of create — I didn’t realize they had 20 assists combined between the three of them. So trying to keep two of those guys in and having CY play with two of those guys a lot more and having Mark play a lot more with at least one more of those other two, I think has significantly helped our offense, helped the ball move. I don’t think we can plan on scoring 111 every night, but I think it’s been good.

“We need to get our defense — defense sometimes takes a little bit of a hit when you go a little smaller. So we gotta make sure we got the right matchups to play that way if you will. But offensively it’s been a way better look for us to have more creators in there to create open shots.

“Jarin went 3 of 3 tonight. Jarin needs catch and shoots. Jarin’s shooting a lot better with those guys in. We went through the numbers and looked at him kinda when we decided to put Labaron in for him, we showed him how much better he is with two of those three creators in and it’s helped his game. We told him he’d get at least as many minutes and he has. He’s averaging — ever since we took him out of the stating lineup he’s played more minutes than he’s averaging before and his minutes have been more efficient, which is what really matters.

So, CY’s been more efficient. Jarin’s been more efficient. Mark Sears has been more efficient. It’s helped a lot of guys on offense since we’ve gone and made that change in the lineup and kept the rotations a certain way like that.

“We want him to be aggressive. That dunk he had in the second half, we’d like to see that a lot more, kind of go in on the catch already. Teams are loading up off him. They used to do it all the time to Herb Jones. Herb was great on this. When he got to New Orleans with the Pelicans, they said he was the best guy on the team already on that – we called it a go-catch – catch already to kind of beat the heavy help that they try to play off him. We need him to do a little more of that.

“The post-ups, drawing doubles, because he’s a good passer out of it, we’d like to see more of that. So yeah, we’d like to see him more aggressive, as long as he’s not turning it over. He’s had some turnover issues. He ended up turning it over three times tonight. He had the one drive on the baseline. I don’t even know what happened. We’ll have to go look at the video. But as long as he’s not turning it over, we’d like him to be as aggressive as he can be because he makes good plays when he’s not turning it over.”