TUSCALOOSA — There's a certain learning curve to taking over a college basketball program, and Nate Oats is living it right now, more than halfway through his first season at Alabama.

In his only previous college head coaching opportunity, the 45-year-old Oats already knew many of the personnel involved when he took the reins at Buffalo in 2015 after three seasons as Bobby Hurley’s lead assistant.

But after accepting the challenge of coming to Alabama and reviving one of the Southeastern Conference’s winningest programs, that learning curve has been especially steep and something both he and his assistants are still adjusting to in Tuscaloosa.

“We need to learn our personnel a little better too,” Oats admitted Saturday following a 77-74 nonconference win over visiting Kansas State, “so some of that is on (the coaching staff) and just being in our first year and not having coached these guys as long as if we’d been here a lot longer.”

Outside of assistant Antoine Pettway, an Alabama alum who has been a valuable member of the past three Crimson Tide coaching staffs, Oats and his other two assistants, Charlie Henry and Bryan Hodgson came with him from up north, entering a situation where their only prior knowledge of a retooled Alabama roster with four returning starters was the film they watched upon taking the job.

Suffice it to say, even as Alabama (12-7, 4-2 SEC) appears to be hitting its stride with a season-long four-game win streak in the middle of Southeastern Conference play, these first couple of months on the court has been a continuing lesson in familiarizing themselves with their players for Oats and his staff.

That was evident Saturday as there was a stark disparity in both minutes and production between the Crimson Tide’s five starters and four bench players. Alabama’s starters — guards Kira Lewis Jr., Jaden Shackelford and John Petty Jr., and forwards Herbert Jones and Alex Reese — averaged 31:50 minutes and 13.8 points against Kansas State compared to just 10:12 and two points from its four bench players — guard James “Beetle” Bolden and forwards Jaylen Forbes, Javian Davis and Galin Smith.

“Yeah, we’re going to have to get more production out of our bench,” Oats said, “(So) we’re going to have to probably play them a little bit more, and that’s on me trying to figure that out a little bit better.”

It’s just one of many lessons Oats and company are taking away from a hard-fought nonconference victory that further highlighted just how far the Tide have come as it enters the second half of the season.

“(There’s) a lot of stuff to learn from the game,” Oats said Saturday. “(So) we’ll take the win right now and hopefully learn, and guys will be mature enough to know that we’ve got to fix a lot of things even though we won. Proud of the guys for a win, but we’ve got a lot of things to fix before Wednesday.”

That’s when Alabama makes its return to SEC play with a road game at LSU (15-4, 6-0 SEC), the only team in the league without a conference loss so far this season.

Among the areas still in need to work include rebounding and turnovers, two key staples to Oats.

As can be expected, the Tide struggled early in the season trying to get used to Oats’ breakneck pace on both sides of the ball, which led to the team averaging 18.5 turnovers over its first eight games, including topping 20 turnovers three times during that early season stretch.

But prior to this past week, the Crimson Tide had significantly cut those down, averaging just 12.5 turnovers over its previous nine games. Then came a season-high 25 turnovers last Wednesday at Vanderbilt, and the 16 committed Saturday against Kansas State, including 10 in the first half alone.

Against better competition — like an LSU or Kentucky — those sorts of mistakes can be especially costly. And Oats knows that.

Rebounding was also an issue Saturday as the physical Wildcats dominated Alabama with a 45-33 edge, including an overwhelming 22-3 advantage on the offensive boards.

"I was really frustrated. We want to be tougher than the teams we play and I felt like we got (abused)," Oats said. "One of the areas of the stat sheet you can see how hard you play is rebounding, and they destroyed us on the glass. ... We just didn't give an effort when we needed to."

Which is where better management of his players’ minutes — especially those on the bench — could’ve helped on the court.

Two of Alabama’s three offensive boards Saturday came courtesy of two bench players, Forbes and Smith, the former of which had two points and a single offensive rebound in less than four minutes of action. Smith, one of just three healthy “bigs” for the Tide, added three points and four rebounds in 15 minutes on the floor.

“In hindsight, (Smith) maybe needed to play more,” Oats said. “Galin’s a tough kid, our rebounding numbers are up when he’s in the game. I thought there late when we needed stops, he came up with some late rebounds. We’re going to need him to play really big for us at LSU on Wednesday.”

Oats said the same about Forbes, who is only averaging nince minutes per game this season but has shown flashes of ability in short spurts on the floor: “I think he plays really hard and gives us a little bit of an edge that way.”

And with upcoming games against both LSU and Auburn — two of the SEC's top teams — over the next three weeks, Oats knows Alabama will need every "edge" it can muster as it makes its NCAA Tournament push down the stretch.

"We just went with who we were comfortable going with," Oats said. "Yeah, we're going to have to get more production out of our bench, we're probably going to have to play them a little bit more, and that's on me."

Alex Byington is the Montgomery Advertiser's Alabama beat reporter. He can be reached by email at abyington@montgome.gannett.com or on Twitter at @_AlexByington.