Nate Oats and Mark Pope are two of the best offensive minds in college basketball. Their brilliance was put on full display Saturday in Rupp Arena as Alabama and Kentucky combined to score 199 points in a 102-97 win for the Crimson Tide.

Nate Oats has to compete against Kentucky and Mark Pope regularly, but he had high praise for the Wildcats’ coach. Alabama edged Kentucky 102-97 in Lexington, but Oats knew Pope would be a great fit with the program.

Alabama basketball coach Nate Oats didn't spare the top of his roster ... And in response, the top of the roster spared Kentucky no mercy. Seniors Mark Sears and Grant Nelson led the Crimson ...

Vanderbilt's roster construction and Morez Johnson's rapidlly-improving defense among trends Isaac Trotter is tracking.

Derrion Reid is questionable for the game against the Wildcats, Alabama coach Nate Oats said Friday. The Crimson Tide is set to face Kentucky on Saturday (11 a.m. CT, ESPN) in Lexington, Kentucky.

Alabama (15-3, 4-1 SEC) trailed for the next eight minutes before starting forward Grant Nelson reclaimed a lead that had been denied by Kentucky's non-starters. TIME TO PANIC?Why Nate Oats and ...

In particular, Alabama attacked a trio of Kentucky guards — Koby Brea, Jaxson Robinson and Travis Perry — and had a great deal of success doing so. Wildcats head coach Mark Pope noticed it, but there wasn't much he or his team could do about it.

After his second-half benching against LSU, Mark Sears was back in Alabama basketball’s starting lineup at Mississippi State on Wednesday. The lineups were posted shortly before tip in Starkville.

However, there are less difficult things to do than play a ranked Chris Jans team on the road in a midweek contest. Alabama head coach Nate Oats is aware of this, and he expects the No. 4 Crimson Tide (17-3,

I had jotted down the Kentucky game as a roadie when I was transcribing my notes — that game was actually in the Hump. So ignore any inconsistent references thereto. I could memoryhole the problem, but we’ll settle for an errata correction instead of pretending it didn’t happen.

CBS Sports college basketball writer Gary Parrish has made significant midweek changes to his Top 25 and 1 rankings.