Minutes after leaving the court, Nate Oats was asked if his team heard his warning.

No. 4 Alabama had been shellshocked and court-stormed at Oklahoma. A string of slightly uneven performances coalesced in the worst defeat in Oats’ tenure days after the team’s best Associated Press ranking in two decades. The future of the season would be in the hands of the players, Oats said following Saturday’s 24-point loss to the Sooners.

Three nights later, Oats looked down at the box score against Vanderbilt — season-highs set in team 3-point (46.3%) and overall field goal percentage (59%) led to the biggest conference victory in school history — and cracked a smile when explaining the Tide’s response.

“You saw the way we played. Do I think it resonated? Yeah, I think it resonated. Look, I didn’t, I’m not one of those guys that just comes in and loses my mind. We came in, we watched the film after we got done watching the breakdowns and they were not pretty, I left it up to them,” Oats said following the 101-44 blowout. “What’s wrong? What do we got to do better? It’s your team. We’re all going to be coaching awhile. This is the only time you guys are together. What do you guys want to be about? … Can we get our edge back?”

Oats said the Tide knows “nationally we’ve been questioned as soft.” So, the team met and wrote down its perceived issues and desired improvements on a board. Freshman Noah Clowney was vocal, Oats said, as was Brandon Miller. Jahvon Quinerly, one of the few upperclassmen on the roster, detailed a similar loss two years ago that the 2021 squad rallied around.

It’s not that Alabama (19-3, 9-0 Southeastern Conference) added a resume-boosting victory against the 10-win Commodores. Still, an early scramble for a loose ball by Clowney and freshman guard Jaden Bradley gave Oats an assurance his message was heard, at least for one night. Paired with a mandatory extra hour of shooting for each player, the Tide resembled a team in contention for an NCAA Tournament top seed.

“We didn’t put it all together when we needed to be and kind of complacent,” sophomore Nimari Burnett said. “We needed that loss. It’s going to help us get better, it’s helping us get better. It revealed some things we need to work on and we had a good comeback today.”

One of the team’s new goals was “practice harder” so coaches tweaked the practice schedule. Programs are allowed four hours of work a day and 20 hours per week, per NCAA bylaws. Between team drills, workouts and film review, the Tide had only been using about two-and-a-half hours, Oats said.

Alabama met for an uncharacteristic Sunday practice. On Monday, each assistant was assigned four players for an extra hour-long shoot-around. It resulted in 19 makes in 41 attempts on Tuesday, the most 3-pointers in a game since Jan. 14 (20 versus LSU). Oats made sure to praise the effort more than the shot-making, challenging his team to maintain an edge without suffering another loss.

“We didn’t give them an option. Every kid had to get in with an assistant,” Oats said. “… We’re going to make sure we’re smart and not overwork them. … But we felt we needed to get in, get some skill level down.

“Trust your work that you put in. A lot of guys put a lot of time in the gym and shots dropped. Just amazing how that works.”

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Nick Alvarez is a reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @nick_a_alvarez or email him at [email protected].