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Alabama is ranked No. 4 in the country and is in the thick of the race to win the ultra-competitive SEC.

Head coach Nate Oats understands that maintaining that lofty ranking — and translating competing for the SEC title into competing for the national championship — requires extremely high standards.

The Crimson Tide (16-3, 5-1 SEC) will have those goals in mind when they play LSU (12-6, 1-4) on Saturday night in Tuscaloosa, Ala.

Oats called a 103-87 home victory Tuesday night a “solid win over an improved Vanderbilt team.” But he lamented that his team’s defense “completely fell apart in the second half, which is a little bit disappointing for a team that’s trying to go after a championship.”

“We’ve got to be a lot better than that in the second half than to give up 56 points,” Oats added.

But there was nothing to lament about Alabama’s offense, which has been its strength this season. The Tide, who lead the country with an average of 90.9 points per game, topped the 100-point mark for the sixth time this season and second straight game since having a season-low point total in a 74-64 loss to Ole Miss.

Alabama, which has five players averaging 11-plus points per game, was led by Aden Holloway and Mouhamed Dioubate with 22 points apiece against Vanderbilt. Mark Sears added 21 while surpassing 2,500 career points. Dioubate added 10 rebounds to his career-high point total.

“You kind of know what you’re going to get out of Mo,” Oats said of Dioubate. “He’s going to play hard. He’s going to be physical.”

It was Alabama’s defense that slipped in the second half, and it was LSU’s offense that slipped in its last game, a 68-57 road loss against Texas A&M last Saturday. The Tigers finished with their lowest point total of the season after scoring just 27 second-half points.

They made 17 of 47 field-goal attempts (36.2 percent) and 7 of 29 3-pointers (24.1 percent) in addition to being plagued by turnovers, committing 18 that led to 19 Aggies points. Turnovers have been a problem throughout SEC play.

LSU, which saw the Aggies take control with a 10-0 run in the middle of the second half, had six turnovers during a six-minute scoreless stretch.

“We had empty trip after empty trip with turnovers,” Tigers coach Matt McMahon said. “We were never able to recover at that point. But 11 second-half turnovers just makes it impossible to win.”

LSU ranks third-to-last in the SEC in turnover margin (minus-1.33), though Alabama is even worse, ranking last (minus-2.21).

Cam Carter (16 points) and Jordan Sears continued (11 points) to lead the Tigers in scoring, but both were below their season averages of 17.6 and 13.8, respectively. They’ll likely have to surpass their averages if LSU is going to have any chance to keep up with the Tide’s scoring pace.

It was already a problem against the slower-paced Aggies, who took 14 more shots than LSU (61-47). Alabama averages 64.4 shots per game.

“You just can’t overcome that,” McMahon said of the disparity in field-goal attempts, “especially on the road.”

–Field Level Media