Nate Oats couldn’t recall if he’s ever had a week of practice like the one Alabama basketball just had.

For the first time in his four years in Tuscaloosa, his team essentially had a midseason idle week, granting tired legs extra days of rest before the home stretch of the 2023-24 season. But more importantly, the time gave the Crimson Tide another opportunity to fix its glaring weakness: defense.

“We were able to work on a few different things defensively and not all of them directly apply to (the next) game, but some of the overall intensity and attention-to-detail and focus on defense I think has been better,” Oats said Friday. “Different guys had better practices throughout the course of the week. I think most of the guys on the team, they’ve had their best practice of the year at some point this week. … If we can get everybody to start playing their best basketball, right as we close the year, that’s the goal.”

A wrinkle to the schedule this year, the off day allowed for more self-scouting, akin to how a football team handles its open date on the schedule in the fall. Following last weekend’s shootout win over LSU, Alabama players had their typical Sunday off-day. Then, they dug in for a “pretty hard” stretch on Monday and Tuesday. Coaches allotted Wednesday, usually a game day, for rest before lighter practices on Thursday and Friday.

No. 15 Alabama (17-7, 9-2 Southeastern) holds a half-game lead over South Carolina in the conference standings. Through league play, Alabama has been middle of the pack defensively compared to its SEC counterparts, it ranks fifth of the 14 teams per KenPom. Oats has elaborated on the “layers” of UA’s issues, mainly with an inability to stop the ball from easily reaching the paint. Too often, Alabama’s guards — it’s deployed a four-guard starting lineup between Mark Sears, Aaron Estrada, Latrell Wrightsell Jr. and Rylan Griffen — have allowed dribblers to either drive past them or fire off passes to mismatches in the post.

Alabama will be challenged by the former on Saturday when it hosts Texas A&M (15-9, 6-5). The Aggies enter Coleman Coliseum one game removed from upsetting No. 8 Tennessee. It’s led by the backcourt pairing of Wade Taylor IV and Tyrecee Radford.

Three of Taylor’s highest-scoring games have come against ranked opponents, including a 31-point outburst against Kentucky on Jan. 13. He and Radford have combined for 41.7% of the Aggies’ shot attempts. Per Oats, A&M’s system is designed for its guards to create offense and rely on forwards like Andersson Garcia (ranked 29th nationally in offensive rebounding percentage per KenPom).

“(Taylor is) bound to score some points,” Oats said. “It’s more like, how highly contested are the shots? How difficult are you making his shots?

“They know their roles well. Our guards have to do a great job of making sure his shots are all highly contested and just making things a lot more difficult for him. This is going to be a game to see how much has our backcourt improved defensively?”

Alabama is set to recognize the 2003-04 team that reached the Elite 8. Former coach Mark Gottfried and other players are expected to be in attendance, including Antoine Pettway, a former assistant of Oats, now a head coach at Kennesaw State. The Crimson Tide is debuting alternate uniforms with a throwback look to its former ‘block A’ logo.

Tip-off is scheduled for 11 a.m. on ESPN.

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