The final score might resemble a shootout, but No. 5 Alabama really survived a rock fight during its trip to Texas A&M on Saturday night. The Crimson Tide nearly blew a 15-point lead in the second half but was able to escape Reed Arena thanks to some clutch shots from guards Mark Sears and Chris Youngblood as well as a gritty performance on the boards.

Alabama (14-2, 3-0) allowed Texas A&M (13-3, 2-1) to rack up 32 second-chance points and sent the Aggies to the line for 48 free throws. However, Texas A&M was unable to capitalize, shooting just 58% from the charity stripe. Alabama didn’t do much better from the line, making 27 of its 40 free-throw attempts. However, the Tide made up for it by shooting 35% (13 of 37) from beyond the arc.

Alabama is now one of three remaining teams still undefeated in SEC play. Following the win, head coach Nate Oats spoke to reporters for roughly 10 minutes. Here’s a full transcript of his post-game press conference.

“Tough, hard-fought, physical game. That’s what they do. I mean, I don’t know what it is about this area of the country, because our game against Houston not too far from here felt like the same deal. It felt like whoever could get the most rebounds — I mean they were all over the glass.

“Our guys, I thought did well. We still gave up 32 second-chance points. So what they do great — turn people over — they turned us over 15 times. The O-boards, they got 32 second-chance points. We weren’t great at either of those.

“We were good enough to win. It’s a good thing we shot the ball well from 3 in the first half. We kind of evened it out a little bit, but that’s a little more what we expected to shoot. This year we’ve kind of been struggling. You get the right guys taking them, you shoot a higher percentage. Sears is 4 of 10 [from 3], CY [Chris Youngblood] has been a great shooter his whole career, he’s 3 of 6. And [Aden] Holloway was 3 of 6. Get those guys taking them and we’ll be a better shooting team. And we got those guys taking them in the first half.

“We ended up outrebounding them by eight, which at times it sure didn’t feel like it. But Cliff [Omoruyi] in limited minutes — I’ll say a lot about Cliff, man. A lot of guys would have just sat that one out after they rolled their ankle like he did. And he manned up, wanted to play, wanted to be there for his teammates. He ends up with 10 rebounds in 16-plus minutes, and you can’t say enough about it because we ended up getting 54 and he got about 20 percent of our rebounds. Good game for him.

“I thought a lot of guys played well for us. It’s the second game in a row Jarin [Stevenson] — we chart these blue-collar points, they’re kind of hustle plays. We knew we’d have to make a bunch of them because that’s what Texas A&M does. They’re hard-playing, tough, hard-nosed. Jarin won that, so can’t say enough about what he’s been able to do here.

“But this is a game — if you plan on winning the league, we’re trying to do that, we’ve won it multiple times since I’ve been here — you’ve got to go on the road win these tough games. You’re up 15, you can’t let that thing slip away like it was close to. So a lot of credit to A&M. And we’ve seen it, they were down 18 to Oklahoma and came back midway through the second half. So we told our guys. And sure enough, we’re up 15, and here they come. They’re running back, we had some dumb turnovers, gave up some O-boards and they hit the 3.

“[Zhuric] Phelps was playing really well. In my opinion, he’s kind of taking [Wade] Taylor’s role a little bit when Taylor’s out, and he’s done pretty well in it. Had 34 points [against Oklahoma], and then tonight he had 24 in these last two games. We didn’t do a great job on him I didn’t think. We’ve got to do a better job on guys like that, but we did good enough to somehow eke out a tough road win.”

“I mean we’ve got to quit turning the ball over because they score off of turnovers. We came out of the under-12 and immediately turned it over to them. We’ve got to eliminate turnovers. And if we can get them going against our half-court defense — I believe that’s when Phelps hit that 3 it was in that run if I remember right. … We needed to get him off the line. He’s more than capable of making shots. His percentage isn’t great on the year, but we’ve seen him hit timely, tough 3s, and he’s been a big-time scorer throughout his career.

“Get back to not turning it over. Get back to what we knew we had to do to win this game. Make them take tough, non-rim 2s. We didn’t want their shooters getting 3s. And keep them off the O-boards. Just kind of remind the guys what we had to do.

"They [Texas A&M] actually, I thought they were pretty good tonight to be honest with you. They’re pretty good every night, but I thought they really attacked us well. Honestly, we’re fortunate they couldn’t make free throws. If they could make free throws, this game would have been a little bit different."

“Man, no. Way too much time left with how they play, especially with some of the turnovers we had. A couple of times we turned it over and dodged a bullet, but we couldn’t keep turning it over like we were. They make tough plays, man. They’re a winning group. They expect to win. Buzz builds a winning culture, and they expect to win. When teams expect to win, they’re hard to put away, especially at home like this.

“No, I didn’t feel comfortable until… I thought maybe when we were up six with under 20 seconds to go, maybe. But we give up an and-1, and then it was never until the very, very end that I felt all that comfortable.”

“I mean, we don’t usually foul that much. I’ll have to go back and look at the film. These guys play hard, physical. The run to the o-boards. They were intentionally fouling us at the end to save clock and put us at the line when they were down, and somehow… I’d got to go look man. We got a lot of rebounding fouls called on us. I mean, we’d been stressing that we’ve got to keep them off the glass. I guess maybe our guys, they must have been holding, trying to keep them off the glass. And they’re better at rebounding technique, and at least they weren’t holding us when we crashed. We’re a pretty good offensive rebounding team, too.

“But I don’t know. Not a real smooth game. I looked at my watch, and it was almost 10:00. People expect three hours on a football game, not a basketball game, but it is what it is. You keep fouling, they’re going to keep calling them.”

“I mean, look, they’re not going to lay down. Buzz has been here as long as I’ve been at Alabama, and he’s had some tough starts and then they get it together and start winning. He’s gonna get these guys bounced back. They’re going to be right in that hunt for the league title. You look at our schedule— I’m sure their schedule’s not easy either— but we’ve got some tough games.

"We’ve got a long ways to go before we’re having a serious conversation about winning the league title, but this game, if we’re fortunate enough to win the games we need to moving forward, this will be one you look back on that was a big one in my opinion because I think they’re right there. I mean, they’re a top-10 team in the country, so to beat them on the road takes some toughness, and it’s a big win for us.”

“I’m very impressed. He gets downhill. We did an awful job in the first half. We kinda gave him his right hand, he got down there multiple times. Basically the Oklahoma game was the only game he’s had this role because he’s been playing with Taylor. Now that he’s got his confidence, when they do get Wade Taylor back, they’re going to be a really tough offensive team to guard because who do you put your best perimeter defender on? Taylor’s been an elite scorer in this league for a long time, and now all of a sudden they have him. I don’t want to say I was surprised, because he had 34 the last game. We tried to warn our guys, and we didn’t do a very good job on that in my opinion.”

“We knew what we were getting with him from South Florida. He’s the conference player of the year. He shoots at a really high clip. He just had to get off that surgery, get himself back comfortable. I told him we were gonna get him some shots this game. We kind of tried to put him up with the press to have some other guys handle it, get him open. He goes 3 of 6. He made a bunch of tough plays too. He’s a winner. He’s a competitor. He’s a leader. You want him in.

“I thought he did the best job on Phelps tonight and that’s with him still not 100% because he’s still trying to get back from the ankle surgery. So, his competitiveness, his winning attitude and then, boy it was great to see him drop some shots."