Alabama - 85, Houston - 80 (OT)
NATE OATS: We told our guys it was going to be a cage match. We're here in Vegas. The strength coach went and visited UFC earlier this morning.
That's the toughest, hardest playing team in America pretty much every night out. The last five years they've got more wins than anybody else in the college basketball for the last five years for a reason.
I've got a ton of respect for how hard they play and how they do it. And to outrebound a team like that by nine, you have to have tough guys on our team too.
Mo got 16 rebounds, five offensive rebounds. For us to get 20 O boards against a team like that -- they got 16, which is a lot; we gave up too many. But you look at second-chance points, we outscored them by two.
The game was going to come down to we had to take care of the ball. We had too many turnovers but we made up for it with our effort and second-chance points. We outscored them on second-chance points. We said if we could beat them at what they're best at, second-chance points, we felt like we could win the game.
It wasn't easy. Defensively they're great. They put a lot of pressure on us. We turned it over too much. But we had some guys make some shots late, and our defense was great both at the end of regulation and in overtime. I think they went 1-for-10 in overtime. Part of that could be they're tired and we're probably a little deeper.
You got a guy like Dioubate come off the bench and give you 28 minutes, I thought that was huge. Holloway off the bench I thought made plays on both sides of the ball. One turnover late. He got in there got his hand on it when they were trying to go post-up.
So proud of our guys. I thought Mark was patient, let the scoring come to him, hit some big shots. Got to the free-throw line, made his free throws.
We've got to do a better job as a team making free throws. But I thought Mark did a pretty good job -- and Mo was 100 percent. He's been working. Mo just stays with it.
Couldn't be more proud of the entire team, particularly these two guys sitting next to me right now.
Q. Coach mentioned the depth on this team. Did that sort of help you not become deflated when Houston makes that late charge that you had two guys come off the bench score in double figures, mentally where you're at once they make comeback?
MARK SEARS: I feel like it really showed when we went to overtime. We had so much depth in the game. We were able to really push the pace. And they kind of couldn't handle it because they were so fatigued. But the depth on this team is really what makes it special.
Q. Going scoreless against Illinois, how good was it to get things going? And then to start off the tournament with a win?
MARK SEARS: My teammates they really build me up. They constantly tell me to keep shooting. If you miss the first three, they believe I was going to make the next four. My teammates really uplift me. I can't do it without them because they give me all the confidence tonight.
Q. That first 3 that went in tonight, how big did that feel and was that able to get you going tonight?
MARK SEARS: That first 3 felt really good. It gave me a lot of confidence to shoot the next open shot that I had.
Q. Mo, I've seen huge (indiscernible) on the glass. How much do you relish playing against these physical teams like Houston and being able to go up against some of these big bodies in the paint and have success against them?
MOUHAMED DIOUBATE: I just play my game, honestly. Even if it was like any other team we played I would have brought the same intensity in the game. I know what I do good on the court.
So, Coach was telling me before the game this is going to be a Mouhamed Dioubate game. I was prepared for it, either if we played any other team I was going to bring the same intensity. And I brought it tonight and we got the win.
Q. Tomorrow night's a big day for Rutgers fans. Cliff built that program in a lot of different ways. I was curious what he's meant for you guys and what that transition's been like for him down in Alabama?
NATE OATS: We had real problems with our rim protection last year. When he came available in the transfer portal, we made that our top priority because our defense was not very good last year, and a major problem was rim protection. We felt like he was arguably the best run protector in the country.
So I didn't realize what a great kid he was, though. We knew what he could do on the basketball floor. But once we got him -- I don't know if you watched him tonight. Like, he didn't play a ton of minutes because Mo Dioubate was playing really well and Grant was playing well, so we paired those guys in the front court.
But Cliff had the best energy. So happy for Mo. Hopefully tomorrow night is Cliff's night, but who knows? But he should have fresh legs.
But I think his attitude, his character, how he treats everybody in the program -- and then on top of that he gives us a presence at the rim. He's really good.
So we're going to need him to win big games this year. And he was good in his minutes tonight. But he's just an unbelievable kid. So I'm super happy we get to have him for his last year. And I'm sure Rutgers have all the best things to say about him from his years there before we were able to get him for his last year because he's an unbelievable kid.
Q. (General question on Derrion Reid)?
NATE OATS: Derrion's athletic, plays hard, it's about the right stuff. He was out a lot. He had a couple of different injuries in the summer and the fall. He wasn't able to get the reps, like Labaron got. Labaron has been injury-free. Thankful.
We've been trying to get Derrion going. We knew he had the size to be a great perimeter defender. And we needed him tonight. He was second on the team in plus/minus. He was plus-7 when he was in there for his 18 minutes. And we put him in to get big stops.
He rolled with the role we gave him tonight, with being a stopper. And I thought he hit a big 3 there, too. And he finished the big one at the rim. He did well all around. I thought this was his best game, and we need him. We don't win the game without him.
So different guys are going to step up different nights. I'm sure he's going to have a big scoring game coming up soon. But he's just been doing whatever we need him to do to get wins so far.
Q. Three straight games against Top 25 teams. What do you see in your team in that stretch?
NATE OATS: You know what, the Purdue game we got manhandled a little bit. I didn't think our physicality was where it needed to be. We turned the ball over too much. The ball didn't move.
I thought if we would have brought the intensity we brought tonight to that game, it might have been a little bit different. But that's why you play. We like to schedule big programs.
Purdue is one of the best programs in the country over the last five years or so. And they exposed some stuff we needed to work on. And I think what they exposed we've gotten a lot better. Our post D and our rebounding and toughness has been better.
We were better against Illinois. Illinois is a really skilled great offensive team. I thought we were solid on defense a lot of that game. Our offense significantly better than Purdue.
Now we go back to a game against Houston where it's kind of just really tough, physical, great defense and rebounding team. And we matched their physicality for most of the game.
So now we've got a Rutgers opponent. Are all of them in Top 25? Oh, they fell because they lost to Kennesaw State. They're good. I told our team, Antoine Pettway, the head coach at Kennesaw State, was my assistant for four years. He's done a great job.
I think maybe Rutgers early on surely didn't expect Kennesaw to be as good as they were. I told them, we'll get a whole lot different version of Rutgers, I'm sure, than what happened at Kennesaw.
They're super talented. Both those guys are supposed to be top five picks. I told them we'd get a whole lot different version of Rutgers, I'm sure, than what happened at Kennesaw.
That's super talented, both guys are supposed to be top five picks, somebody told me. Looks like, from the film I've watched, I need to get back, watch a bunch of film tonight and see what they're doing.
But Coach Pikiell has done an unbelievable job there. Their tough, physical, similar to Houston in that regard in some ways. We're going to have to bring it against them again. They'll be a little bit younger with some high-level talent with Harper and Ace Bailey. But they're good. They're really good. We'll have to be ready to go tomorrow.
Q. (General question on Aden Holloway)?
NATE OATS: Super skilled. Shoots it really well. Can stretch the floor. Makes great reads as a point guard. Can really pass the ball. And he's got significantly better on defense. We challenged him on the defensive end, challenged him to make some plays. We challenged him to rebound the basketball.
He ended up with three rebounds, which he told me he was going to have six. So we'll take three. He contributed to us outrebounding them by nine. But he made some tough plays. So I think he's a great fit for us with how we spread the four out and how we value skilled unselfish guards that can spread the floor when he's shooting. He doesn't miss many shots in practice. I've seen him make some really tough shots, deep shots. And he's great for us.
Q. (General question on Mouhamed Dioubate's defensive effort)?
NATE OATS: Mo was great on defense. His rebounding and those three blocked shots he had. They were timely blocks. Erase some mistakes.
He had a little bit of Noah Clowney in him. Noah was -- our defense was third in the country that year and Noah was with us. He erased lots of mistakes.
We kind of need a guy that can play the 4. Pair him with Grant at the 5, or even Cliff, maybe sometimes at the 5, and make some plays.
That sequence where he got the block, we came out and hit the 3. Basketball is a game of runs. We started out on the bad side of a run. We didn't play (lost audio) a game. And they got up. We went on a big run, went up eight. That was in the middle of that, if I remember correctly.
And we just had to kind of grind off some stops there after we gave that lead away, but I thought our guys did a pretty good job of that.
Q. (Indiscernible)?
NATE OATS: I mean, it was pretty good. I'm looking at the analytics box score and they shot -- non-rim 2s, they took 36 shots. Over half their shots, we got 55 percent of their shots were non-rim 2s that they shot at 39 percent.
I know some of them went in. And everybody is going to refer to the ones that went in. But they missed almost two-thirds of them.
So that was the game plan. I just think Cryer was the one that really kind of got going and we had to adjust the game plan for him. It worked for everybody else and it didn't work very well for him. He ended up with 30 points, and we probably should have made some adjustments earlier in the game, to be honest with you; but when you're up eight, you think things are going well and all of a sudden they're not.
So I thought, defensively, they're a good team. They do a great job. They don't turn the ball over much. They get a shot up on goal and go try to kill you on the O boards.
Biggest thing was trying to make them take tough first shots. I thought our first shot defense was pretty good, and second shot defense was good enough to win, and they're a good team there's no way -- nobody's blowing them out. They play too hard to ever get blown out. That's not possible when you play Houston. We knew it was going to be a tight game and we made enough plays particularly late in regulation, late in overtime, to win the game.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports