Alabama head coach Nate Oats doesn’t like his team paying attention to the scoreboard mid-game. His assistants chart every four minutes and the goal is to stack the blue-collar points, stops and 3-pointers throughout the night.

But with three minutes remaining on Friday night, the Tide holding a 30-point lead over Charleston, Oats checked the margin himself and decided to remind the team it didn’t matter.

“Game’s not over!” He yelled as the UA band and a small traveling group of fans celebrated a relatively easy win in Spokane, Washington.

Four-seed Alabama set a program record with 109 points in March Madness. Mark Sears, its starting point guard averaging over 20 points a game, managed 30 points on 13 shots. Alabama (23-11) scored the most of any first-round games in the 2024 bracket. Yet, No. 13 Charleston’s 96 points were the second-most by a losing squad.

“We’ve had this issue with this team all year. I think they play the scoreboard too much. We built a 31-point lead and I would have to go look and see what the last seven, eight minutes of that game. We just got up 31 and we quit guarding, which is a little frustrating, but it’s not the time of the year to really kind of jump these guys right after you just scored 109 points in an NCAA Tournament game,” Oats reasoned.

Oats looked visibly frustrated about some lapses in the second half, knowing the Tide won’t have as many stress-free nights as this one in Veterans Memorial Arena. The Cougars (27-8) shot the ball at a 33.8% rate in the first half but still ended with 1.157 points per possession — Alabama has said its goal is to keep teams under 1.0.

In the first half, Alabama slipped into a 19-13 deficit as Charleston kept attacking with second-chance points and Frankie Policelli hit some tough shots. Then Oats checked in defense-first pieces and first-year players Mouhamed Dioubate and Mo Wague and Oats saw his team express “maturity.”

Dioubate and Wague triggered a 10-0 run, the former tipping one pass away and then another to himself on the ensuing in-bound for a breakaway dunk. They finished for a combined plus/minus of 27 while on the floor in the first half.

Mark Sears, who led all scorers with 30 points, also won the team’s hard-hat award for the most hustle plays. Oats deemed Sears “unbelievably good” on the defensive end by disrupting the Cougars’ motion and dribble hand-offs. During a first-half run, Sears stayed glued to his assignment and distracted him, leading to the ball bouncing off his face and settling near the scorer’s table.

“We were a good defensive team for large parts of the night and then they’re obviously an offensive firepower, Charleston is,” Oats said. “If you take the foot off the gas on the defensive end, they scored a bunch of points in a hurry and made it look like our defense wasn’t that good.”

After starting the night two-of-15 from 3-point range, the Cougars made eight of their next 18 attempts. It scored 27 points in the final six minutes of regulation. Kobe Rodgers and Ben Burnham both scored 12-plus points after halftime.

Somehow, Charleston out-scored UA 62 to 58. Time will tell if Alabama was reverting to form or if it was just a brief lapse on an otherwise good showing.

“We got to start somewhere,” guard Rylan Griffen said. “I’ll take 30 minutes (of defense), sometimes it was 20. Tonight I feel like it was more 25-28. Next game, hopefully 35. Then after that, you know keep going. Hopefully, (we can play) 40 minutes next game. But realistically, maybe 35 and then 40.”

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