Nate Oats discusses Alabama's defensive effort vs. Dalton Knecht, Tennessee playmakers

Alabama fell to Tennessee on the hardwood over the weekend, but Nate Oats came away with some positives regarding the Crimson Tide’s defense.

Speaking after the loss, Oats was asked about Alabama’s focus on Tennessee star Dalton Knecht on the defensive end, as well as the rest of the Volunteers squad, and how the Crimson Tide performed against them on Saturday.

“We played a lot harder on D. They’re a good team. Leading scorer in the league. We did a good job on him (Dalton Knecht), I thought. You know, we hade multiple guys who made some tough ones late, where we didn’t foul where we were supposed to,” Oats explained. “But for the most part, he goes 5-of-14. I thought we showed we could guard. There was some loose balls and some defensive rebounds that should’ve been 50/50 balls that we didn’t come up with late.

“If you’re going to win a championship, like we’re trying to do, you’ve got to make those plays, and we just didn’t make enough of them late.”

While it was Knecht the Crimson Tide keyed in on, and rightfully so, Alabama couldn’t stifle the Volunteers long enough to get a victory. Now, they’ll turn their attention towards getting right for the NCAA Tournament, which is on the horizon.

However, that wasn’t all Oats said regarding Knecht during his postgame press conference, as the Alabama leader compared the Tennessee star to several very talented NBA players who are able to take over the game at a given time. 

“Look, you saw what he was doing to some of the teams in the league like it was just taking games over. We watch a lot of NBA here and you see what teams to do guys like Steph Curry, Luka [Doncic], Dame Lillard. When they get going, they’re almost unguardable 1-on-1, and we felt like that’s the way he – he had 25 points in the last 10 minutes of that Auburn game. Just took the thing over after Auburn was up.”

In the end, Knecht finished the game with 13 points, five rebounds, and an assist in 28 minutes of action. All of those numbers are down from his season averages, meaning he either had a bad game or Alabama was able to find a way to slow him down. 

“So we didn’t want him getting in a groove, getting comfortable doing that to us, so we thought maybe putting a little question in his mind. It helped getting him in foul trouble, for sure. I don’t know if the traps helped. The foul trouble helped. A combination of everything,” Oats said. 

“He still ended up with 13 points and he just missed some shots that we didn’t do a great job. He just missed some shots, too. But he’s really good. If we’re fortunate enough to play these guys again in the SEC Tournament, we’ll have to look and see if what we thought with the possessions where we did trap him.”

Time will tell where Alabama goes from here, but the Crimson Tide were certainly a little disappointed they couldn’t defeat Tennessee over the weekend, so Nate Oats and company will need to build on their potential moving forward.