Nate Oats explains what goal of SEC Tournament is for Alabama

There’s one obvious goal in conference tournaments: Win it and advance to the NCAA Tournament. But Alabama coach Nate Oats has another goal in mind for his team this weekend in the SEC Tournament.

Oats, during an appearance on The Paul Finebaum Show, laid out his goal for his team. The Crimson Tide had an up-and-down 2021-22 season, but he argued it doesn’t matter what happened in the regular season. It’s all about playing well at the right time.

“Let’s get our confidence back,” Oats said. “Let’s get to where we’re playing our best basketball again because it feels like [we] played great in December, kind of took a lull, played some good games in January, kind of been back and forth. We’d like to start peaking. We may get a chance to play four games here. … The better we play, the more we get, the more we can get ourselves rolling going into the NCAA Tournament.

“And we are still the defending SEC champs and in the tournament. We won it last year, we’d like to come back here with the same mindset that we can win it. We’ve shown we can play with anybody in our league. So let’s just be playing our best basketball whenever our last game is here in Tampa, and if we’re doing that, I like our chances come the NCAA Tournament.”

Nate Oats on why momentum is important for Alabama

Oats pointed to a specific example for why Alabama needs to get rolling now instead of at the end of the regular season. Remember, his Crimson Tide lost to No. 11 seed UCLA in the NCAA Tournament last year, and the Bruins struggled mightily prior to the Pac-12 Tournament. He’s hoping Alabama can replicate what UCLA did — even if it involves more than skills on the court.

“You can get on a run,” Oats said. “Look at UCLA last year. They lost four in a row going into the NCAA Tournament, had to play the play-in game. Shoot, [they] almost lost to Michigan State in the play-in game, the 11-seed. They end up beating us in the Sweet Sixteen and they end up going to the Final Four. If we’d have made some free throws, we’d have beat them.

“You need to get hot at the right time. Some luck’s involved here and there a little bit. We just need to get to where we’re playing good basketball again.”