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The 3-pointer: Three takeaways from Alabama's win against Vanderbilt

Alabama's Brandon Miller (24) drives by a Vanderbilt guard on Tuesday | Photo Alabama Athletics
Alabama's Brandon Miller (24) drives by a Vanderbilt guard on Tuesday | Photo Alabama Athletics

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — For the second time in the Nate Oats era, Alabama has gone a perfect 6-0 through its first six conference games as the Crimson Tide downed Vanderbilt 78-66 on Tuesday.

Here are three takeaways from Alabama's victory against the Commodores.

Alabama moves forward after Miles incident

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Tuesday night's game felt like it was years away.

The news of Darius Miles getting charged with capital murder was heavy news for the team to digest according to Alabama head coach Nate Oats, who noted the team's road trip to Vanderbilt was "little reprieve from what they had been thinking about."

"It’s obviously been a little bit of a distraction," Oats told The Crimson Tide Sports Network on his pregame show. "It would be a lie to say it wasn’t. There’s gonna be plenty of distractions in life. This is a big one. But you’ve got to be able to regroup, gather yourself together and still go to work.

"You and me have been through some things. Obviously, this is a little different, maybe. You know how real life works. You’ve got to be able to compartmentalize a little bit, focus on what you can, so now tonight, I’m just hoping they can really focus in on what we have to do tonight, because we’ve been playing some good basketball up to this point."

Oats shared that his team wasn't fit to practice on Sunday after the team met to discuss what transpired over the weekend. Instead, the Crimson Tide practiced on Monday before traveling to Nashville. Tuesday allowed the team to finally get back into a regular game-day routine and while it wasn't the team's best performance this season it was Alabama's first step toward normalcy.

"This wasn’t covered in the ‘Coaching Basketball’ class back in college," Oats said. "This is one you’ve got to get a really good feel for where your guys are at. Even going into the team meetings, you’ve got to kind of play it a little bit by ear and see where they’re at, where their heads are at, and kind of go from there."

Brandon Miller's electric homecoming

Alabama's second 6-0 start in the Oats era was highlighted by freshman phenom Brandon Miller.

Miller, who was making his first trip back to his home state of Tennessee, finished with a game-high 30 points on 10-of-16 shooting. Buoyed by his 31-point performance against LSU, Miller looked for his shot early and often against the Commodores. Miller scored five of the team's first nine points en route to 12 points in the first half alone.

Tuesday was also Miller's fifth double-double this season and his first since Alabama's win against Mississippi State on Dec. 28. Along with Miller, Alabama received scoring help from Jaden Bradley and Noah Gurley who both finished with 12 points. The three players led the team in offensive rating finishing above 99.

"In light of the circumstances we were under, I'm really proud of the mental toughness that our guys showed," Oats said. "I think we did a pretty good job getting the group together, they did a good job getting themselves together, we had a really really good practice yesterday, had a good walkthrough today and came out here and open the game well. We built up a lead, it would be nice if we didn't give up the few runs we gave them to make it close but in spite of what we've gone through, I think our guys played really well tonight."


Alabama survives the game of runs

With all of the outside noise, questions swirled around how this young Alabama team would be able to refocus in a hostile environment. Coming into Tuesday night, the Commodores owned a dominating 41-23 record at Memorial Gymnasium.

While it was a long three years since the Crimson Tide left Nashville with a victory, Tuesday was far from Alabama's prettiest performance. Instead, Alabama had to survive Vanderbilt's scoring runs which kept the game closer than expected with the Commodores shooting less than 30% from the floor.

After opening up a 23-point lead in the second, Vanderbilt mounted a 27-13 scoring run to trim the lead down to just eight points. Once again, Alabama had to rely on Miller who knocked down two clutch free throws which stopped a 13-2 run over the last 2:36 in the second half. After a crucial stop on defense, Gurley knocked down both of his free throws.

The Crimson Tide went 10-for-10 at the line after shooting just 61% in the first half. While Oats was pleased with Miller, Gurley and Noah Clowney stepping up during the final five minutes of the game, he reiterated that the team needs to be better at playing a full 40 minutes.

"We didn't shoot the ball very well tonight but we shot it well at the free-throw line and we needed to make our free throws to close the game because they just kept coming at us," Oats said. "It seemed like we could get a stop there in the last few minutes. They just kept coming down, they'd score a quick two or quick three and we'd have to turn around and make a free throw. We gotta do a better job of closing games on the defensive end."

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