Nate Oats addresses difference in performance on the road at Auburn versus at Oklahoma

Nate Oats and Alabama had a big road matchup this past weekend against rival Auburn and left the Plains victorious with a 77-69 victory. The game moved the team to 12-0 in SEC play on the season.

After the victory, Oats was asked about what were some of the reasons the Crimson Tide seemed to better handle the environment at Auburn than in their blowout loss to Oklahoma last month.

“I don’t know if noise was the issue at Oklahoma as much as it was the mindset going in,” Oats said. We played at Houston; the noise didn’t rattle us. I don’t feel like the noise is gonna rattle any of our guys. I feel like it’s what’s our mindset going into the game. I feel like we didn’t take Oklahoma as seriously as we needed to for whatever reason. That’s why we didn’t play as hard as we needed to.”

Four players finished in double figures for the Crimson Tide. Rylan Griffen led the way with 16 points off the bench while Mark Sears added 15, Brandon Miller dropped 13 and Jaden Bradley scored 12 points.

The team as a whole shot 59.2% for the game, which is remarkable considering they were playing on the road in what was likely the biggest game at Auburn Arena this season.

“There’s no way we weren’t taking Auburn seriously,” Oats said. “They are a really good team, biggest rivalry game and they’re competing for an SEC championship. I know they’ve lost five of their last six but they were right there a couple of weeks ago at the top of this league. Our guys came ready to go. We didn’t do a great job in the first half with some stuff. I felt like some guys weren’t as locked in on the defense end. Maybe not the effort, but it was more executing the game plan as much as we needed to. I thought did a lot better job there, especially in the last 10 minutes the game.”

Alabama head coach Nate Oats talks being No. 1

After the Auburn victory and Purdue losing to Northwestern, Alabama vaulted to No. 1 in the country, wich Nate Oats addressed Tuesday.

“I think every team has its own personality. I didn’t talk about being No. 1 with them at all yesterday. We did talk about it today just a little bit,” Oats said. “Just what does it mean? It means absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of things of what we’re trying to accomplish this year.