It was far closer than it had to be, but Alabama men’s basketball got a win in its SEC opener at Vanderbilt Saturday, beating the Commodores 78-75.

“Road wins are not easy in the SEC,” Alabama head coach Nate Oats said after the win. “We’ll take them. Obviously, was not one of our better performances, but we’ll take a road win to start out conference play.”

Here are three takeaways from Saturday’s road win.

Hot start

After a hit-or-miss non-conference slate, Alabama’s SEC schedule got off to a hot start. The Crimson Tide needed to handle business against an unremarkable Vanderbilt team, and it did just that even though the final was too close for comfort..

Alabama got off to a momentarily slow start, but soon remedied that, jetting out to an 18-point lead. That didn’t last long, but the Crimson Tide walked away with a road win to start conference play.

It was a good thing too, the SEC slate only gets harder from here. The Tide gets an improved South Carolina squad at Coleman Coliseum on Thursday before traveling to Mississippi State and facing Missouri and Tennessee.

As the season moves along, Oats said he wanted to see the Crimson Tide get better at finishing out games.

“The games we lost, the defense for the first 28 minutes was great,” Alabama guard Mark Sears said. “That last 12, that’s where we really lost the game, so we’re really bought in to finishing a full 40 minutes of defense.”

Tough win

At one point in the first half, Vanderbilt coach Jerry Stackhouse called a timeout with his Commodores down 18. Alabama had all the momentum.

Then, VU got cooking. The Commodores went on a 9-0 run to make it 33-24 in Alabama’s favor.

“We’ve got to do a better job when the other team is calling timeout and goes on a run,” Oats said. “We talk about starts to games, closes to halves, start to the second half, close the game, I didn’t think we did a great job closing either half.”

After a brief back-and-forth, Vanderbilt went on another run, finishing out the half with another nine-point swing. That cut the halftime lead to just four points.

The Commodores made it a close game in the second half as well, with chances to win it late before walking away defeated by three.

Stars of the show

Alabama had three players in double scoring figures with Sears leading the way. He finished with 21 points, 14 in the second half, along with four rebounds and three assists.

Afterward, Oats praised Sears’ mindset down the stretch.

“He was aggressive,” Oats said. “I thought he wasn’t scareds to make plays. He drove the ball with some physicality. He drove it in there one time, got fouled, stepped up to the free throw line, made free throws.”

Rylan Griffen had 16 points for the Tide. Latrell Wrightsell Jr. had 11, all of which came in the first half.

“Thought he was great,” Oats said of Wrightsell. “Came in, made shots. That’s two games in a row where he’s really shot well for us.