Nate Oats breaks down how Alabama will prepare for Round of 32

The Alabama Crimson Tide took care of business in the first-round matchup against Texas A&M Corpus Christi. With that victory, the Crimson Tide advanced to the next round of the men’s NCAA tournament. After their Thursday victory, Alabama head coach Nate Oats broke down how his team is preparing for the Round of 32.

“We do things a little bit different. We don’t divvy up the scouts between assistants,” said Oats. “Charlie has always got our defensive scout, and Pettway always has the offensive scout. And they have their small army of people that help them. So we got Maryland ready to roll. Charlie is probably looking at it right now. They will get me the edits right away. I will look at the edits they have already got done. And I will get to the games. I will look at the edits first. Get a pretty good idea of what’s going on. I will watch as many games as I can.”

“With this short turn around, you can’t watch a ton of them. That’s why I rely on Derek, our video coordinators on the defensive side of the ball. They have a couple GAs. A lot of those guys have already got a lot of that stuff broke down. Charlie does an unbelievable job on the defensive side. They will have that ready. I will sit down with that side of the ball and they will show me what they got.”

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Alabama touchdown Texas A&M Corpus Christi by a final score of 96-75. The Crimson Tide’s defense wasn’t at their best game against the Islanders as they committed 18 fouls on the night. That led to 16 made free throws on 18 attempts. But offensively, Alabama could not miss, shooting 47.1 percent from the floor and 45.5 from the three.

The offensive coaching staff will have their hands full, helping to repeat that result against their next opponent, Maryland.

“I will sit down with the offensive side of the ball,” said Oats. “Adam Bauman helps (Antoine) Pettway. They got GAs and people helping them. And Maryland’s got some different matchup zone. They switch it. We’re going to have to figure out how to attack them too. We spend probably equal time on defense and offense because those separate people are really locked in. Bryan (Hodgson) is working with (Christian) Pino on personnel, more on the defensive side. So they will kind of give me a quick rundown of their personnel. And I’ll get as quick of an idea of what they have as I can. And we’re going to show video of the team tonight.”

“They will get out of here, rest, get with Clark (Holter), or trainer, rehab, at dinner tonight we’ll show them the first edits. Tomorrow morning we’ll show them more. We’ll have a short practice because you know we just played today and we play tomorrow. And show more video tomorrow. And we’ll wake up Saturday morning, show them a quick game-day edit, and be ready to roll.”

Alabama will take on Maryland Saturday night and a matchup of the one-seed and eight-seed. The Terrapins’ defense can be suffocating and will likely challenge the Crimson Tide’s offense. So, points could be at a premium in this matchup.

When Maryland is on their A-game defensively, they can be problematic for opposing offenses. In their season series against Purdue, Maryland limited the Boilermakers to an average of 56 points per contest while splitting the series. For Alabama to walk out of Saturday’s contest victorious, the Crimson Tide will have to bolster up their defense a bit while continuing their stellar play on offense.