Ole Miss, as Nate Oats said, is an “interesting team.”

Entering the 8 p.m. CT Tuesday trip to Coleman Coliseum, this group lost five of its last seven after winning its first six. That skid includes a home loss to North Alabama on Dec. 20 but also a near-upset of No. 8 Tennessee last Wednesday.

Add in the outside anticipation of suddenly unranked-Kentucky on Saturday and this has all the symptoms of a trap game. Oats acknowledged that fact while noting not one word has been spoken about the visit from the Wildcats ahead of Tuesday’s game.

“If we’re overlooking Ole Miss to get to Kentucky,” Oats said Monday, “we’re 100% going to lose.”

No. 7 Alabama (11-2, 1-0 SEC) is coming off a scrappy 78-67 win over Mississippi State in the SEC opener last Wednesday. It was a rock fight early but Alabama had the mindset to pull away from for a win over a ranked team on the road.

A year ago, this midweek game with Ole Miss (8-5) might have been more of a mental roadblock than Oats said he expects Tuesday night. He brought up the fact last year’s group started 2-0 in SEC play before losing on the road to Missouri to begin a three-game losing streak.

“We can’t do that this year,” he said. “A home game against Ole Miss is a game you’re supposed to win if you’re trying to win the league. We know that. But Ole Miss isn’t trying to go down 0-2 to start SEC play either.”

But this is also an Alabama team that has a healthier approach to games like this.

“There are no cancers on this team,” said guard Mark Sears, a transfer from Ohio. “There are no negative people to bring the team down.”

That’ll be important against an Ole Miss team that lost 63-59 to the Vols. They led most of the way before Tennessee grabbed a second-half lead.

“Ole Miss, they’re interesting,” Oats said. “They’re deep. They’ve got a lot of guys that score. The bench has been good.”

They also throw a 1-3-1 zone defense at Alabama, one that’s troubled previous Tide lineups. Improve shooting compared to last year certainly is a solid zone buster, as Oats notes.

“But we have to stay aggressive,” he said. “We can’t let them changing defense — we don’t want guys sitting back staring at them trying to figure out what we’re going to do.”

Oats was happy with the mentality of his team coming out of the hard-fought win in Starkville last week. That was a Mississippi State team that used a physical style to bully their way into the rankings so that was the challenge Oats gave his locker room.

“We thought we were more talented than them,” Oats said of Mississippi State. “If the more talented team plays harder and more together, they’re going to win the game.”

Alabama enters Tuesday night’s game as a 12.5-point favorite with its only losses coming to No. 4 UConn and No. 9 Gonzaga.

Michael Casagrande is a reporter for the Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @ByCasagrande or on Facebook.