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Alabama basketball watched Mark Sears go off on the shooting end against BYU. Sears helped deliver a bonkers shooting night for Alabama, rolling to the 113-88 romp on Thursday. Nate Oats dished out some motivation beforehand, though, to spark the epic shooting performance.
Turns out Oats dropped some math knowledge on Sears during practice, which he shared via Will Miller of Alabama on Sports Illustrated.
“Listen, I've got to teach these guys some math. I told Sears there's a thing called regression to the mean,” Oats explained.
Oats shared how Sears wasn't shooting consistently, hence why he gave him some math.
“His last six games he was shooting 14 percent, 5 of 35. He's not a 14 percent shooter, obviously,” Oats shared.
BYU, though, opened up Sears' big shooting night alongside Crimson Tide teammate Aden Holloway.
“They had been going under ball screens just about every game we watched. I told both those guys, Holloway and Sears, man, I hope they go under us because we're going to rein them,” Oats said.
Sure enough Sears and company rained down on the Cougars — knocking down an astonishing 25 three-pointers.
Nate Oats drops further motivation for Mark Sears before Alabama romp
Math wasn't the only motivation for the sharpshooter Sears. Oats also dropped a chess motivation for his scoring option.
“I told Mark he's playing chess, not checkers,” Oats shared. “He just kind of set everybody up with that 5 of 35 thinking he was in a slump and he's going to come out and shoot — 63 percent ain't bad with 10 threes.”
Oats added Sears moved the ball efficiently along with scoring with mastery. But the Final Four coach added Sears and company were prepared for the moment, even after the math and chess speech.
