Nate Oats compliments defensive effort down the stretch against Houston

Alabama coach Nate Oats was impressed with how his defense rose to the occasion over the final few minutes on Saturday in a 71-65 victory against No. 1 Houston. The Crimson Tide trailed by as many as 15 points in the second half before battling back to make it a one-point game with 5:50 remaining.

From that point on the defense put on the clamps, holding the Cougars to just two field goals over the final 5:37 of the game. They handed Houston its first loss of the season, and Oats gave credit to assistant coach Charlie Henry for the defensive adjustments he made to go with a smaller lineup.

“It was great late,” Oats said. “Charlie does an unbelievable job of running our defense. He had some good in-game adjustments. I mean, he’s been in the NBA for five years. So plenty of in-game adjustments at that level. We kind of went smaller and started trapping their guards a little bit more. Then we went back with Charles (Bediako) late. We mixed it up a little bit because it wasn’t working great there early in the second half.”

Guard Rylan Griffen came away with two steals in just 18 minutes off the bench, including one big one during that final stretch. The Crimson Tide bottled up Cougars guard and leading scorer Marcus Sasser all game, holding him to nine points on 2-of-11 shooting and 0-of-3 from 3-point range.

Freshman Forward Noah Clowney led Alabama with 16 points and 11 rebounds in addition to a pair of blocks. When talking about the message he gave to his defense late in the game, Nate Oats noted several players who stepped up, including Clowney.

“I had also just showed our guys, ‘We’ve gotta get stops,'” he said. “I thought Jaden Bradley was great on Sasser, Nimari (Burnett) was great on Sasser, (Mark) Sears did a good job on D. Clowney had a really good night. Rylan Griffen had the steal. Different guys stepped up on the defensive end for us. That’s the No. 1 team in the country, too.

“Now, they don’t have the No. 1 offense, but they’re pretty good. I think they were top 20 in offensive efficiency. So if we can do that against them, you can get stops against anybody we play on the schedule the rest of the year.”

Houston is not the first No. 1 team to fall to Alabama this season. North Carolina dropped a four-overtime game to the Crimson Tide in Portland during PK85. While they might have already drastically dropped in the AP poll the next day, it’s still a historic feat for Oats’ squad, which is just the second team in history to beat multiple No. 1 teams in the same season.

Alabama will hope to keep its hot streak up when it moves on to face Memphis at 9 p.m. ET on Tuesday.