TUSCALOOSA, Ala. (AP) — Nate Oats, head coach of the Alabama men’s basketball team, met with the media on Wednesday ahead of the 17th-ranked Crimson Tide’s participation in the Emerald Coast Classic, which will be held Nov. 24-25 in Destin, Fla.
Last week, Alabama defeated Mercer 98-67 in the first round. The Tide will face Ohio State (3-1) on Friday at 6 p.m. CT (CBS Sports Network). On Saturday, the Tide will face either Oregon (4-0) or Santa Clara (5-0).
Here’s everything Oats said ahead of the road trip on Wednesday:
Sorry. Practice consisted of simply getting them ready before we hit the road.
We’re doing great, we’re 4-0, and we’re scoring good, but our defense needs to improve. We have a chance to demonstrate that we are a capable defensive team against a quality opponent against two quality opponents, whatever the second game is against. That has been our primary concern. We must improve our defense. That has been our primary focus in practice.
Ohio State is a physical Big Ten team. Tough and physical. They’ll put some strain on both our defense and our rebounding. They have high-quality bigs. On the defensive end, they have good rim protection. When we get to the basket, we have to make solid around-the-rim decisions because they have some good shot-blockers — they had 10 blocks in one game.
They’ll post it more than any other team thus far. Our post defense must be strong. They have excellent guard play. They have other kids on their team who we also recruited. Thornton (Bruce) is from the Atlanta area. He’s tough, physical, and well-put-together. He’s making good shots. I also recruited Roddy Gayle from western New York. He’s an athletic guard with good size. They have good players, so we’ll have to be ready to go when the ball is thrown on Friday night.
But I like where we’re at right now. I enjoy our group. I believe we will rise to the occasion, but it will be two difficult games for us.
Coach, you’ve previously mentioned cutting the team’s depth depending on defensive intensity this year. Will it alter with back-to-back games?
It’s not going to change much. If you don’t win the first one, our goal in this transaction is to go 2-0. We must win the game on Friday night. Now, depending on how many minutes particular guys had to play on Friday, you might have to play guys Saturday night who didn’t play as much on Friday, or whatever.
But we’ll start the players we believe will give us the best opportunity of getting stops against Ohio State on Friday night. That is where we are right now with this team. I believe we’ll have enough skilled and committed defensive end players by Friday night to have a solid rotation of players who are serious about getting stops.
Aside from getting away with two victories, what do you see that makes you conclude, ‘This was a successful tournament for us’
Our defensive ferocity, as well as our defensive execution. How good can our defense become? KenPom isn’t perfect, but it provides you a good idea of where you stand in comparison to other programs in the country. We’re now just outside the Top 25 in defensive efficiency. Can we make a significant leap? Can we stop some good offensive teams? To me, the question is how good we can be on defense against two quality teams, starting with Ohio State.
They’re very different. They’ll be posting more. They sometimes bring out the two bigs at the same time. They’ll post their wings and guards, so how much can we — how well can we do in the post with our guards and bigs? They have some good shooters. Can we isolate their shooters? Last game, we didn’t do a good job of keeping Mercer out of the paint, and this is a team that tries to drive you. They have harsh, physical guards who will drive you insane. Can we keep them from getting into the paint?
With these two games, I’m going to focus on the defensive side of the ball to see how much we can improve.
How much progress have you observed in Nick Pringle in the last two weeks?Nick has improved substantially. Now he’ll have to guard some real posts that they’ll try to punch it to in order to score. It’s going to be unique. His ball screen defense improved noticeably. His rim protection improved. There is a help defense. Nick’s life has improved dramatically in the last two weeks.
Hopefully, he will continue to improve and become the inside leader we require. Mo Wague needs to make similar leaps. He has all of the desire, all of the athleticism, tenacity, and physicality. He just needs to figure out how we want him to use it, since it’s very different from what they were doing in West Virginia.
They definitely look out for each other. Look at our body language on the bench during games, how guys assist each other out, how they pull for each other.
We have specific people; Rylan Griffen really stepped up and was a terrific teammate to Sam Walters in practice the other week. We started with two teams, a winner and a loser for each drill, and Rylan was on the opposite team from Sam. When Sam didn’t make his sprints, Rylan ran the next one with him, side by side, encouraging Sam. If they don’t complete their sprint, Rylan’s team gains another point, but he knows that in actuality, we’re all on the same team.
On this team, there’s a lot of it.Guys who understand that what is best for the team is for other guys in their position to improve and benefit the team. We had it going with Jordan Bruner and Alex Reese in the past. Such teams are special and capable of making deep runs because everyone — there’s terrific camaraderie in the locker room. We have a great group of people on our team.
Davin Cosby is one of the nicest individuals I’ve ever met. He wants to improve and help, but he’s more than glad for his teammates who are playing ahead of him. He’s the type of boy you want to make time for because he’s such a nice child. Same thing, Mo Wague. You can go down the list indefinitely.
It’s easy to be that way before the game begins, especially when the minutes aren’t separated. It becomes much more difficult if the minutes are separated. How good are you when you don’t get to play as much as you’d like? Despite not getting as many minutes as they would want, we have some excellent teammates and people on our team. That is the most important thing we have learned in the first two weeks.
Can we keep doing it now that the minutes are getting even shorter? That will be the question, but based on what I know about this group, I believe we’ll have extremely strong chemistry throughout the season, whether they play a lot of minutes or not.
I know you’re concentrating on Ohio State, but have you thought about Oregon or Santa Clara yet? How difficult is it to prepare for three clubs so early in the season?
Other than the SEC tournament, when you’ve already played every team you’re going to play at least once, if not twice, and it’s back-to-back-to-back — that’s a different story, I told our guys. Outside of the SEC tournament, this will be the only time you play two teams in one weekend before the NCAA tournament.
We told them to prepare as if it were the NCAA tournament. It’s a little different because there are no days between games, whereas the NCAA tournament has one. But can you prepare for three teams in a week, a half-week, whatever — Sunday night, you find out which four teams are in your tiny pod to make the Sweet 16, then you play Thursday or Friday. We have a bit more time to prepare, and we play back-to-back, but it’s the closest thing to the first weekend of the NCAA tournament, and maybe the second weekend.
Let’s attempt to prepare like that, I instructed our guys. Let’s go over what happened in Oregon and Santa Clara earlier this week. We had yesterday off, but today’s practice is all Ohio State. Tomorrow is entirely dedicated to Ohio State. But we did some things in practice on Sunday and Monday to attempt to prepare for Oregon’s zone defense. They haven’t used it much this year, but it’s part of their package. Just trying not to be startled by anything we see on the defensive side of the ball against Santa Clara and Oregon. We looked at what those two teams might do and did some of it Sunday and Monday, but today and tomorrow will be all Ohio State.
Because of this,
On Thanksgiving Day, we’ll have a Thanksgiving dinner. It will only be the team. I believe we’ll have Thanksgiving dinner at Harbor Docks, which is owned by the owner of Chuck’s here in town. I’m looking forward to it, and then we’ll have a couple of meals together on Thanksgiving Day, so we’ll make sure we have turkey, mashed potatoes, dressing, and everything else goes with a Thanksgiving feast.
So we’ll practice, watch some college basketball, then watch some NFL games on Thanksgiving Day. The Packers take on the Lions. I’m not sure how well that will go for us, but we’ll be sure to watch some NFL, Thanksgiving, and college basketball as we’re preparing for Ohio State.
That’s what I’m doing for Thanksgiving: college basketball, NFL games, and some turkey. We’ll make certain to reproduce that.
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