Nate Oats: 'We're not doing enough to beat good teams'

Nate Oats was not satisfied with Alabama’s performance at all, an 85-82 loss to No. 8 Creighton. Simply put, the Crimson Tide are not doing enough.

Those words came straight from the head coach’s mouth. And despite a close game against the Bluejays, Alabama isn’t built to win those types of games at the moment.

Oats couldn’t do much but tip his cap to Creighton.

“Tough loss, I mean they are a good team,” Oats said. “We were in there, definitely wasn’t one of our better shooting nights but they didn’t shoot great either. You know, Kalkbrenner affected the rim in the second half …  

“We’re not doing enough to win against good teams right now. Creighton’s a really good team I mean, hopefully, Kalkbrenner looked fine in the second half. Hopefully he’s healthy and they go on to win some games, that would help. I mean, they do a good job defensively. They did a good job guarding the three point line. It’s our season low in threes made.”

Alabama’s leading scorer was Mark Sears, putting up 19 points, four rebounds and one assist. Nick Pringle fouled out, but left with 17 points and six rebounds. But not having a big man down the stretch definitely had the Crimson Tide stretched thin.

“So on our defensive end, you know, we just weren’t good enough,” Oats said. “We got to do a better job guarding … our bigs have to figure out how to guard without fouling. That’s two games in a row that both Nick (Pringle) and Mohammed (Wague) foul out and not that many minutes so they combined for 30 minutes and 10 fouls … 

“We’ve got to do a better job guarding without fouling. We gotta do a better job of putting them in a position where they need to foul but we had some positive things. I thought we played well in stretches but we got to figure out how to win a close game against a good team here.”

The game was tied 44-44 at halftime, but Creighton edged Alabama in the second half in the end. Oats might need a better effort in the upcoming schedule, especially with SEC play coming soon after the holidays.

Alabama is back in action Wednesday against Arizona, so it doesn’t get any easier for Oats and company.