The easiest decision Mark Sears made all night in Alabama basketball’s 96-83 home win over Kentucky came off his own steal, with 2:05 remaining, and a one-on-one fast break opportunity. As the Crimson Tide point guard crossed midcourt, all that stood between he and the Kentucky basket was the Wildcats’ 7-foot, 260-pound center, Amari Williams, who would’ve relished the chance to reject a layup by the 6-foot-1 Sears. Instead, the fifth-year senior calmly settled behind the 3-point line, stroked a triple safely over Williams’ head, and celebrated the resulting 91-79 lead that put UK away.
Far harder were the decisions he had to make around the rim, but just about all those turned out to be the correct ones, too. That’s something UA coach Nate Oats has called for Sears to improve on of late, and on the way to a 30-point night, he went to the rim with a plan and executed it with poise.
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Sometimes that meant scoring — he made five of seven shots at the rim — sometimes it meant finding the open man, and sometimes it meant dribbling through the lane and re-setting on the other side of the floor.
“He was five of seven at the rim with some shot blockers in there. I tell the guys, take the ones you should take and make them. If you’re getting your shot blocked, it’s probably not a good shot,” Oats said. “He got his shot blocked once tonight, but as aggressive as he is, he gets to the (FT) line 11 times. I’ll take that, you just can’t get your shot blocked three or four times.”
When Sears penetrated the lane in a loss to Auburn last weekend, he looked rushed, unsure and flustered. On the same floor seven days later, with the sort of vision Oats has been wanting more of, he found enough space to score inside, leveraging his defender while recognizing when defensive help wasn’t there. That’s not easy against Kentucky’s always-sizeable frontcourt. But with Williams in close proximity, Sears maintained a feel for whether the Wildcats’ leading shot blocker was lurking, switching, or otherwise committed defensively.
Alabama’s offense is a stick of dynamite, but fuse doesn’t always meet flame until Sears combines his penetration with calmly-made smart choices. When he does, every teammate on the floor becomes instantly more effective, especially when his assist-to-turnover ratio is in the 4-2 range, as it was against the Wildcats.
Oats praised Sears’ defense, too, and he was visibly determined on that end of the floor, as well. Overall, it was one of his best games of the year, just as the Crimson Tide continues a gauntlet-like finish to the regular-season. Up next are Mississippi State, Tennessee, Florida and Auburn. Like always, he’ll launch his share of threes along his climb up college basketball’s career scoring list (he’s now 34th all-time, and passed none other than Steph Curry on Saturday.)
But Sears the distributor is perhaps just as important to Alabama’s postseason hopes as Sears the long-range bomber.
And that part of his game made a well-timed return.
Tuscaloosa News columnist Chase Goodbread is also the weekly co-host of Crimson Cover TV on WVUA-23. Reach him at cgoodbread@gannett.com. Follow on X.com @chasegoodbread.
This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Sears on point with the part of his game Alabama basketball depends on
