Nate Oats reveals which analytic numbers he cares about most

As a former high school math teacher, Nate Oats is an unabashed analytics nerd.

Still, when he gets his hands on the postgame stat report, the Alabama head men’s basketball coach immediately turns his attention to the one particular metric: leverage numbers.

“I like to look at the leverage numbers, like are we better with you on the floor on the defensive end than when you’re off, or are we better with you on the floor on the offensive end than when you’re off,” Oats said following No. 4 Crimson Tide’s 96-83 win over visiting No. 17 Kentucky on Saturday. “It’s a little bit … obviously there’s some luck invovled, a guy hits a banked 3 when you’re on the floor and it had nothing to do with you. So it’s not end-all be-all, but I do like to see (it).”

Since Oats landed in Tuscaloosa following the 2018-19 season, analytics have been an integral part of nearly everything Alabama does from practice prep to in-game decision-making. It also creates a sense of transparency when formulating his roster formations and regular game plans.

“I tell the guys, we get enough data through the course of the year — practice data, game data — by this point of the season, the stats that we have are not luck based on small sample sizes,” Oats continued. “We’re either better with you on the floor on the defensive end, or we’re worse with you on the floor on the defensive end. And if we’re worst, we have all the data to show why.

“That’s the thing when we recruit guys, I tell them ‘I’m not going to promise you any amount of minutes, what will promise you is you’re going to get a fair shake and if you’re not playing as much as you want to play, you’re going to know exactly why.’ We’re going to sit you down and show you, we have plenty of stats to show guys why.”

Following Saturday’s win, Oats specifically cited Alabama’s struggles on the offensive boards, where the Kentucky held a 12-8 advantage — including just one offensive rebound in the entire second half — for a 15-9 lead on second-chance points.

“It wasn’t the top two or three things we stressed this game, but it’s one we’ve got to get better at and we weren’t very good. We were 27-percent on our offensive rebounding percentage,” Oats said. “We’re trying to have that at 40-percent plus, and we’ve been at 50-percent or above against some of the best rebounding teams in the country. So to only have it at 27-percent, and nothing against Kentucky, they’ve got some really good bigs, but I felt like we could take advantage of our guards going in there and getting some tough rebounds. And we didn’t. So that’ll be one thing we address in our cleanups.”

Oats wasn’t done with his areas for improvement, pointing out Alabama’s turnover percentage and defensive execution as the Tide close out the regular season against five straight Top 25 ranked teams. That run begins with Tuesday night’s home game against No. 24 Mississippi State (9 pm ET, ESPN2).