As Alabama basketball prepares for its second SEC game, Crimson Tide coach Nate Oats is seeking some more blue-collar workers.

"We need some guys that want to really compete, be the hardest-playing guy on the floor every time they’re out there," Oats said Monday before the game vs. South Carolina on Tuesday (6 p.m., SEC Network).

Oats, during his press conference Monday, made references to the 2022-23 team that ended up with the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament. He even talked to this season's team Monday about it, discussing how Noah Clowney always went to the board where Alabama tracked blue collar points in practice. That's because Clowney, a future first-round NBA Draft pick, wanted to win the blue-collar points in practice every day. Nick Pringle would try to compete with Clowney for it, too, Oats said.

"We've got to get a little bit more of that this year," Oats said.

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The blue-collar hustle on which the program under Oats prides itself is there at times; Oats noted how guard Aaron Estrada "crushed everybody" on Monday in practice with blue-collar points. But Oats seems to want a culture shift on this season's team as to how effort is treated.

"We need some guys that really praise other guys’ effort plays and want to get everybody’s efforts plays going up, whether it’s blue-collar plays, screens, assists, stuff that makes the team better that’s not necessarily scoring," Oats said. "We need everybody to start recognizing it more, want to do it more, be a great teammate, stuff like that we’re trying to emphasize."

The Crimson Tide (9-5, 1-0 SEC) sits at a turning point in the season. It lost most of the signature games it played in the non-conference portion of the schedule, usually making it competitive for most of the matchup before struggling to finish late. So it has five losses, albeit good ones. That won't hurt Alabama drastically come NCAA Tournament selection time, but the Crimson Tide has to start winning games to bolster its resume and help its case.

Alabama is fresh off a close win over Vanderbilt in Nashville in the SEC opener, but a collapse in the second half almost led to a loss.

"We made it look easy last year at times, but that’s not the way it typically is," Oats said. "Our guys have got to get a little more killer instinct and they’ve got to understand every possession is going to be a tough possession and as soon as they let their foot off the gas, the other team is going to make a run. It’s what happened to us Saturday.”

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: Alabama basketball: Nate Oats seeks guys who 'want to really compete'