TUSCALOOSA, Ala.— No. 4 Alabama men’s basketball outlasted LSU 80-73 on Saturday. The Crimson Tide put together a strong second half to pull away with the victory, but Alabama All-American point guard Mark Sears was never on the floor in the latter 20 minutes.
Sears played 17 minutes in the first half but was held scoreless, missing all five of his field goal attempts, but added three assists, three rebounds and two turnovers.
For a large majority of the second half, Sears had a towel around his shoulders and often covered his mouth with it while talking to numerous assistant coaches and teammates. He appeared to have a look of frustration throughout his time on the bench as well. The ESPN broadcast said that he wasn’t injured, which added to the mystery.
When he stood up alongside the rest of the bench with roughly five minutes remaining, his arms were crossed while talking to assistant coach Preston Murphy.
“I’ll just say this, and I’m not going to talk any more about playing time stuff, we went with the guys in the second half that thought gave us the best chance to win this game, and we won the game,” Oats said during the postgame press conference. “And we haven’t done that very often this year. So that’s all I’m going to say about that.”
Oats made it clear in the opening statement that he wouldn’t be taking questions about Sears’ playing time, hence the quote above.
“We had guys who stepped up, scored it, you know, when Mark wasn’t able to find his kind of scoring rhythm,” Oats said. “I mean, there’s a couple games now where he hasn’t been able to score.”
As the final score states, Alabama got the job done without Sears in the second half. This was much in part due to the Crimson Tide’s depth at guard with Chris Youngblood and Aden Holloway, who led the team in scoring.
“Youngblood stepped up,” LSU head coach Matt McMahon said. “Holloway puts so much pressure on your defense. They’re such a well balanced team.”
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