There doesn’t seem to be any lingering hostility stemming from Nate Oats’ second-half benching of Mark Sears over the weekend.
Oats benched sat Sears for the second half of Alabama basketball’s 80-73 win over LSU this past Saturday. Following the game, the head coach explained the decision by stating “We went with the guys in the second half that we thought gave us the best chance to win this game.”
Sears was not hurt during the win over LSU. While Oats did not elaborate on the reason for benching his star, the decision appeared to be based on a perceived lack of effort by the player.
Fortunately for Alabama, that doesn’t appear to be a problem moving forward. During his weekly appearance on the Hey Coach radio show on Monday night, Oats spoke positively of Sears’ work ethic in practice from earlier in the day.
“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.”
Sears played 17 minutes in the first half, failing to score on 0 of 5 shooting from the floor, including 0 of 2 from beyond the arc. He had three rebounds and three assists with a pair of turnovers. Sears has started all 20 games for Alabama and leads the team averaging 18.1 points and 4.8 assists.
After Alabama and LSU went into halftime tied at 40, Oats opened the second period by sending out a lineup that replaced Sears as well as fellow starter Clifford Omoruyi.
While Sears never saw the floor in the second half, Omoruyi checked in at the 17:33 mark. After recording just a pair of rebounds in the first half, the starting center pulled down seven boards after the break. Omoruyi finished the game with 8 points and nine rebounds while earning the team's Hard Hat Award.
Along with Sears, Oats also praised Omoruyi’s practice on Monday.
“I thought today’s practice might have been his best practice he’s had since he’s been here,” Oats said. “I hope that translates to the game Wednesday.”
No. 4 Alabama (17-3, 6-1) will travel to No. 14 Mississippi State (16-4, 4-3) for a 8 p.m. CT tipoff on Tuesday. The game will televised on SEC Network.
