Nate Oats talks impact of Auburn Arena on push for new Alabama basketball stadium

Alabama head coach Nate Oats understands the impact of the university’s recent arena renderings, and he believes the Auburn Tigers rise to college basketball stardom may have played a hand in the university’s decision.

Alabama athletic director Greg Byrne recently revealed to the Alabama Board of Trustees that he is planning to build a new state-of-the-art arena, one that seats approximately 10,136 people and features several key improvements for fans in attendance. After a recent trip to Auburn Arena resulted in a loss, Oats was quick to credit Auburn’s fanbase — whose passion has only grown with the program’s recent successes — for making a tough environment in a perfectly-sized stadium, providing a blueprint of sorts for the Crimson Tide.

“I’m fired up. It’s going to be — it looks like it’s going to be the best arena in the SEC. We’ve got a couple new ones here, recently. Ole Miss is nice. We just played in one of the nicer ones at Auburn,” Oats said. “That environment (Auburn) is the toughest environment we play in the SEC. Ours is going to be just a little bit bigger than that. I think it’s perfect. It gets students right on the floor. If you look at it, the student section is going to stretch the entire sideline to the baseline.”

Clearly, Auburn Arena provided one of the “toughest” environments that Alabama has seen to date, as the Crimson Tide fell handedly to their in-state rivals. Oats’ squad never once had momentum in the game, and the Crimson Tide ultimately lost by a 100-81 final at Auburn Arena, as the Tigers pulled off a sweep of the regular-season series.

Nate Oats on what new Alabama basketball arena means to program, fans

Alabama basketball coach Nate Oats believes the athletic department’s plan to build a new arena will lead to an exciting future. In an interview Friday, Oats expressed what the arena will mean to the program and fans who attend games.

“I think for our fans this is a huge day,” the coach said. “… It’s huge in the college basketball environment to have one of these new arenas. … Hopefully with a few years here, we’re playing in one of those and we can generate the best home-court advantage in our league.”

Alabama athletic director Greg announced the plans for a new arena Thursday. He proposed a facility that seats approximately 10,136 people, according to AL.com’s Michael Casagrande.

Byrne also said the student section would wrap around three-quarters of the court. In addition, the 2,200 students in attendance would be closer to the court than they are now at Coleman Coliseum. Officials are considering multiple sites for the new arena, including a parking lot next to Coleman and a band practice field on University Boulevard.

Oats, who is in his third season with Alabama, has already established a winning culture. Last year he led the Crimson Tide to a two seed in the NCAA Tournament, their highest ranking since 2002. They ended up advancing to the Sweet Sixteen for the first time since 2004.

This season Alabama sits at 14-8, but has built an impressive NCAA Tournament resume. The Crimson Tide are 6-5 in games against quadrant 1 opponents, including 3-0 against teams that made last year’s Final Four. They are currently a four seed in On3’s latest bracketology predictions.

With the state of the program trending upward, it only makes sense to aim to build on that success. This is just the second head coaching job for Oats, who is 47.

Coleman Coliseum was built in 1968 and holds 15,383 fans. It was renovated in 2005, but Byrne is pushing for a new arena instead of doing that again 17 years later.

After its latest loss to Auburn earlier this week, Alabama will return home to Coleman this weekend for a key SEC matchup with No. 5 Kentucky. That game tips off Saturday night at 8 p.m. ET on ESPN.

On3’s Chandler Vessels contributed to this report.