Nate Oats: UConn 'imposed their will' on Alabama in Final Four

Alabama‘s historic NCAA Tournament run came to an end on Saturday after the Crimson Tide fell to top-seeded UConn in an 86-72 loss in the Final Four.

The Huskies were a heavy favorite to repeat as national champions once again entering March Madness, and they definitely showed why against Alabama in Glendale on Saturday night. As Crimson Tide head coach Nate Oats diagnosed what went wrong for his team in their pursuit of a first ever national championship game appearance.

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“We wanted the pace higher,” Oats said after the loss. “Shoot, they kind of won out. 64 possessions is not ideal for us. They turn to speed them up, though. They don’t turn the ball over. They’re tough. They’re physical. Their sets take a long time to run. When you give up 12-0 boards, all of a sudden they take 20, 25 seconds off the clock, shoot, get a rebound, take another 15 seconds off the clock.”

Alabama entered the matchup as college basketball’s highest-scoring team in the nation, known for taking and making a lot of shots with an up-tempo offensive attack. But unfortunately, the well-roundedness of UConn for the better of the Crimson Tide as they played a phenomenal all-around per usual on Saturday.

“We had to do a lot better job on a lot of things. But they imposed their will on a lot of teams. In some regards, they imposed their will on us tonight, especially with the pace of play,” Oats explained. “Kept getting our guys to push a little bit faster. Seemed like there was always bodies in front of us. They did a great job in transition.”

“The only breakaway transition bucket was the one dunk they had. I don’t know that this official box score is exactly right, we’ll have to look at ours, because we did have some fast break points, the three in transition that Mark [Sears] had, Grant Nelson got the dunk. To me that’s a transition bucket.”

Once again Sears led the Crimson Tide in scoring with 24 points, but his effort was not enough for Alabama. Allowing UConn to make 50% of their shots from the field and control the overall pace of the game.

“So we got a few transition opportunities, but not nearly like we’ve been used to, and not what we needed to beat a team like this. Obviously they do a great job keeping teams out of transition,” Oats concluded.

This 2023-2024 season is not one for Alabama to hang their heads about, making it to the Final Four for the first time in program history in their fifth season under Oats. As they’ll look to go back to the drawing board this offseason and make another tournament run next season after falling to a worthy opponent.