Nate Oats seemed much less interested in Alabama basketball's sixth 100-point outing than he was about the way his defense struggled.

When discussing that end of the court, the Crimson Tide coach spoke in a terse manner as frustration leaked into his voice during his postgame news conference following Saturday's 109-88 victory over LSU at Coleman Coliseum.

"We’ve got to get our defense showing up," Oats said. "I’m going to keep preaching it and harping on it. It’s not like you go to the bench and you’re sitting Herb Jones there at the bench or some of our guys who have been … Noah Clowney is not over there on the bench. Some of these guys who have been great defenders here are not on the bench."

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Stifling defense became a hallmark quality of Oats' conference-winning teams. It has been a key ingredient in the blue-collar basketball brand that Alabama (14-6, 6-1 SEC) has built.

The 2023-24 Crimson Tide hasn't shown that to be a strength. Far from it. Yet, Alabama is in first place in the SEC on Jan. 27.

Offense is the primary reason for that. The Crimson Tide is No. 1 in offensive efficiency in the country, per KenPom.

Alabama showed why against LSU (11-9, 3-4), averaging 1.493 points per possession. So the Crimson Tide has established it can score, and at a high clip. And as a result, it has won and will win games.

Still, Oats seems worried about what happens when the offense has an off night and the defense isn't good enough. See the loss to Tennessee a week ago.

"How good of a team do we want to be?" Oats said. "Are we going to outscore them? It worked tonight. It doesn’t work every night. When you’re cold and your offense isn’t flowing … I thought our effort against Auburn was pretty good. I didn’t think we kept the same effort on the defensive end tonight. Just some plays that really set me off. The effort plays and the lack of focus on the defensive end plays get me a little perturbed when that happens."

LSU attempted 28 3-pointers and made 11. Those numbers didn't make Oats happy when he looked at the stat sheet.

The lament about defense was nothing new, though. It has persisted, and giving up 88 points fueled Oats' frustration. He knows what it takes to win in this conference, and he knows what doesn't get the job done.

He certainly was glad to get the victory, as no SEC victory is necessarily easy, but he knows if a lack of quality defense across the board persists, there will be a lack of wins.

"I do think this is a team that can win (the SEC), and we’re going after it as hard as we can," Oats said. "But if we don’t fix our defense and get the main guys in the rotation that are playing heavy minutes to be as concerned with the defense as the offense, it’s going to be really hard to win it."

Nick Kelly is the Alabama beat writer for The Tuscaloosa News, part of the USA TODAY Network, and he covers Alabama football and men's basketball. Reach him at nkelly@gannett.com or follow him @_NickKelly on X, the social media app formerly known as Twitter.

This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: This still worries Nate Oats, even with Alabama basketball leading SEC