Nate Oats doesn’t mince words when it comes to Mark Sears. The head coach isn’t shy to criticize his point guard, or even bench him when the time calls for it.
Don’t take that the wrong way. Oats loves Sears. He needs him, too. That’s likely why he’s been so vocal about his star’s struggles lately.
If Alabama is going to make another Final Four run this season, Sears will once again need to be the one leading the way. The Crimson Tide has one of the deepest rosters in the nation, but none of its other guards can match the Muscle Shoals native’s ability to take over games.
And generally speaking, as Sears goes, so does the Tide. Just take a look at the numbers.
In Alabama’s four losses this season, Sears is averaging just 13.75 points per game while shooting a combined 14 of 54 (25.9%) from the floor and 5 of 32 (15.6%) from beyond the arc. In the Tide’s 21 wins, he’s averaging 20.3 points while shooting 42.6% from the floor and 39.1% from 3.
Saturday night was one of those bad outings, as Sears struggled during No. 2 Alabama’s 94-85 defeat to No. 1 Auburn on Saturday night. The graduate guard scored a team-high 18 points for the Tide but did so on an inefficient 4 of 17 clip, including a dismal 2 of 11 from deep.
He also recorded just two assists, often choosing to charge recklessly into the lane instead of looking for better options. That led to him going 2 of 6 on layup attempts. It also contributed to a poor shooting night for his teammates, who too often had to settle for contested shots as Alabama went 5 of 26 from beyond the arc.
After alluding to Alabama’s lack of distribution during the opening statement of his post-game press conference, Oats didn’t hold back when asked about Sears’ struggles in the lane.
“Not good,” Oats said. “He shot 4-for-17. Obviously, he’s a competitor. He wants to win at a high level. He’s been able to impact winning for most of his career by scoring the ball. We had him 2-for-6 at the rim, 2-for-11 from 3. Those are typically the efficient shots you get.”
“I thought maybe a couple of them – I thought he got fouled on one, but refs aren’t gonna be perfect, and we sure weren’t perfect as coaches or players. There’s probably some missed reads in there, I’ve got to go back and look at them. It wasn’t one of his better shooting nights.”
Oats isn’t worried about shooting percentages. The former math teacher knows the law of averages will even out and Sears will rediscover his hot hand sooner than later. Alabama’s problem is getting its star to adjust when he’s having an off night.
As Oats said, no one is perfect. Saturday won’t be the last time Sears and the Tide go cold from the floor this season. If Alabama wants to take home its first national title in a couple of months, chances are it will need to withstand a night like that during the six games it will take to cut down the nets in San Antonio.
When that inevitably happens, Oats and Alabama are going to need Sears to change his style.
“We’ve gotta be able to play hard even when shots aren’t going well,” Oats said. “I think that’s a sign of high-character guys. How hard do you play when shots aren’t dropping? Can you keep moving the ball? Maybe sometimes he needs to get 10 assists.”
Along with his 3-point touch, Sears’ ability to bowl past defenders while drawing fouls in the lane makes him deadly with the ball in his hand. But lately the 6-foot-1, 190-pound guard has been a bit too reliant on whistles going his way.
Sears’ tendency to run down blind alleys resulted in him turning the ball over a combined 19 times during a three-game stretch against Mississippi State, Georgia and Arkansas. He’s handled the ball better in his last two outings, committing three turnovers against Texas and just two during Saturday’s loss to Auburn.
However, as it did this past fall, Alabama needs its quarterback to do a better job of scanning his options before dropping his head and charging forward. And Sears has already proven he can be a capable pocket passer.
Sears leads Alabama and ranks third in the SEC averaging 4.9 assists per game. He’s also shown that his distribution skills can overcome poor shooting nights.
Sears tallied a career-high 11 assists against Oklahoma on a night where he shot just 1 of 6 from beyond the arc. He had seven assists at North Carolina when he shot 2 of 7 from deep and nine assists at Kentucky when he was 4 of 12 from 3. Alabama won each of those games, averaging 101 points across them.
Following its loss to Auburn, Alabama (20-4, 10-2) will finish out its regular-season schedule against six straight ranked opponents. Four of those sit inside Ken Pomeroy’s top 15 in terms of defensive efficiency, including to-ranked Tennessee (87.3 points allowed per 100 possessions), No. 6 Texas A&M (91.9), No. 9 Florida (93.5) and No. 14 Auburn (94.4.)
Alabama will need Sears to put on his cape if it wants to make it through that gauntlet run, but that might not always involve the Tide’s hero putting the ball in the net himself.
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