Scotty Pippen Jr: Alabama is 'a very beatable team'

Don’t look now but Alabama just got some amazing bulletin board material. Vanderbilt leading scorer and All-SEC first-teamer Scotty Pippen Jr. told the media ahead of the second-round matchup versus the Tide that Nate Oats’ squad is a “very beatable team.”

Pippen’s not totally off-base with his comment – however, Jerry Stackhouse probably would have advised against the fighting words. The Commodores nearly took down Alabama just a few weeks ago, losing 74-72. The Crimson Tide is a five-point favorite over Vanderbilt in the SEC tournament matchup on Thursday night.

Pippen Jr., coming off of an 86-51 smackdown of Georgia on Wednesday, is averaging 20.3 points per game this season. Prior to his 14-point game versus the Bulldogs, Pippen, son of NBA legend Scottie Pippen, has been on fire over the last month. He had seven straight games with 20+ points, including a season-high 32 versus Mississippi State.

With the No. 11 seed, Vanderbilt is hoping to upset the reigning SEC tournament champs. The winner between Alabama and Vanderbilt moves on to face No. 3 Kentucky on Friday night. Tip-off is 25 minutes after the conclusion of South Carolina-Mississippi State on SEC Network.

Nate Oats sets goal for NCAA-bound Alabama in SEC tournament

There’s one obvious goal in conference tournaments: Win it and advance to the NCAA Tournament. But Alabama coach Nate Oats has another goal in mind for his team this weekend in the SEC Tournament.

Oats, during an appearance on The Paul Finebaum Show, laid out his goal for his team. The Crimson Tide had an up-and-down 2021-22 season, but he argued it doesn’t matter what happened in the regular season. It’s all about playing well at the right time.

“Let’s get our confidence back,” Oats said. “Let’s get to where we’re playing our best basketball again because it feels like [we] played great in December, kind of took a lull, played some good games in January, kind of been back and forth. We’d like to start peaking. We may get a chance to play four games here. … The better we play, the more we get, the more we can get ourselves rolling going into the NCAA Tournament.

“And we are still the defending SEC champs and in the tournament. We won it last year, we’d like to come back here with the same mindset that we can win it. We’ve shown we can play with anybody in our league. So let’s just be playing our best basketball whenever our last game is here in Tampa, and if we’re doing that, I like our chances come the NCAA Tournament.”

On3’s Nick Schultz contributed to this report.