In front of another packed house in Coleman Coliseum, Alabama men’s basketball took sole possession of first place in the SEC on Saturday, beating LSU 109-88. With Auburn’s loss to Mississippi State, the Crimson Tide now holds a slim lead over Tennessee, which has played one less game, for the regular-season conference title.

The win moved Alabama to 14-6 on the season, 6-1 in SEC play. The Tide will be back in action on Wednesday, taking on Georgia in Athens.

Before that, here are three takeaways from Saturday’s win.

A better start

Alabama got off to an abysmal start in Wednesday’s win over Auburn. Head coach Nate Oats wanted to avoid that happening against when LSU came to town.

Mission accomplished. Oats changed his starting lineup, inserting Grant Nelson and re-promoting Rylan Griffen, and things went better.

Griffen scored the first points of the game for the Tide, hitting a three. Latrell Wrightsell Jr. was deadly from deep range as well, leading UA with 14 points in the first half, all but two of them off three-pointers.

The Crimson Tide struggled on defense throughout the half, but headed to the locker room at halftime up 50-44.

T’d up

Oats was unhappy with the officiating early on. Calls weren’t going the Crimson Tide’s way, and the coach was making his voice heard.

After Wrightsell was called for his first personal foul with 3:13 left in the first half, Oats snapped. He began arguing with the crew, which eventually had enough of him.

Oats was given a technical foul, igniting the large crowd at Coleman Coliseum. Even as LSU shot the free throws, he continued to make his case, until one of the referees gave him what seemed to be a final warning.

Jordan Wright made one of the two technical free throws for the Tigers.

Pulling away

The first half was closer than it should have been. Alabama struggled at times defensively, and the Tigers were able to keep pace most of the way.

Not so much after halftime. The Crimson Tide was the better team, and it showed after the break.

Once again, the threes were dropping. Alabama made 14 of them in total, helping pad the lead as the minutes ticked by. UA made 41 percent of its attempts from deep throughout the game.

Mark Sears showed out in the second half, finishing well at the rim on his way to 21 total points, which led the team. Sears also went 11-for-11 from the free throw line.

The Crimson Tide made triple digits with 3:03 left in the game. Soon after, the crowd asked for, and was granted, on-court appearances from the team’s walk-ons.