{"id":84131,"date":"2025-02-24T17:08:00","date_gmt":"2025-02-24T23:08:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/nate-oats-identifies-why-mark-sears-is-playing-best-basketball-late-in-season\/"},"modified":"2025-02-24T17:08:00","modified_gmt":"2025-02-24T23:08:00","slug":"nate-oats-identifies-why-mark-sears-is-playing-best-basketball-late-in-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/nate-oats-identifies-why-mark-sears-is-playing-best-basketball-late-in-season\/","title":{"rendered":"Nate Oats identifies why Mark Sears is playing best basketball late in season"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mark Sears<\/a><\/strong> is averaging 32.5 points per game across Alabama\u2019s last two matchups, including a 30-point performance that led the Crimson Tide over Kentucky<\/a><\/strong> over the weekend.<\/p>\n

Scoring well above his 18.9 points per game average, Alabama head coach Nate Oats believes his star point guard is playing his best basketball of the season for a reason.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think he just wants to win,\u201d Oats said<\/a> of his star point guard. \u201cHe came back to try to win the national championship, He came back to try to play his way into the NBA. Winning solves a lot of that stuff. If you look, he\u2019s not really forcing it, pressing it. He got stuck in the lane where, like in the past, I think he would have thrown up a bad shot. He kicks it out. I think Holloway hit a three off it, if I remember correctly. We got a good shot off the possession.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s trying to play the right way. He\u2019s as coachable as he\u2019s ever been. And his effort on defense has been through the roof, really, the last three, four weeks or so. So just a combination of let\u2019s get him to lead, let\u2019s play the right way on both sides of the ball and give us total effort on defense, and I think he\u2019s been doing that, and I\u2019m super happy with the way he\u2019s been playing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sears got a taste of the Final Four last season, and instead of taking his talents to the professional level made the decision to return to Tuscaloosa for one more season. Based on the Crimson Tide\u2019s success this season, many are expecting them to find themselves right back in the mix this postseason.<\/p>\n

Returning for his fifth season of college basketball for the 2024-25 season, Sears\u2019 scoring total is down from 21.9 points per game last year. Still, he\u2019s among the top 50 scorers in the country with his 18.9 average. <\/p>\n

His return has played a major role in the Crimson Tide\u2019s 22-5 record this season, which has them projected as a 1-seed in next month\u2019s NCAA Tournament. <\/p>\n

With Sears leading the charge, Alabama has a gauntlet ahead of them to finish the regular season. They\u2019re set to host No. 24 Mississippi State<\/a><\/strong> on Tuesday night, and will take on No. 5 Tennessee<\/a><\/strong>, No. 3 Florida<\/a><\/strong> and No. 1 Auburn<\/a><\/strong> consecutively, all before the 2025 SEC Tournament begins. <\/p>\n\n

The post Nate Oats identifies why Mark Sears is playing best basketball late in season<\/a> appeared first on On3<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mark Sears is averaging 32.5 points per game across Alabama\u2019s last two matchups, including a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-84131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84131\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}