Nate Oats shares brutal message following loss against Texas A&M

Alabama suffered a disappointing 87-71 loss against Texas A&M on Wednesday night in the final home game of the 2021-22 season. Despite Senior Day festivities and a good crowd, the Crimson Tide was outscored by 19 points in the second half of the loss.

Now 19-11 on the season with a road game against LSU coming on Saturday, head coach Nate Oats discussed his brutally honest message to Alabama players in the locker room after the Texas A&M loss.

“The end’s going to come quick if this is the effort we get,” said Oats. “We’re as good as our effort is, and it would be really disappointing for some of these guys to end their career here at Alabama with these types of losses. … We can’t play hard for – it’d be nice if they’d platy hard for each other – and I don’t know what motivates some of them.

“The message was that we’ve got to figure out what we’ve got to do to get this team playing hard every night. As the head coach, that’s on me. I’ve got to figure out a better way to motivate them to play hard because our effort has been really inconsistent at times this year.”

Despite the dissatisfaction from Nate Oats after the Texas A&M loss, which has persisted all season, Alabama remains firmly in the NCAA Tournament field after playing KenPom’s toughest schedule in the country.

Texas A&M upsets Alabama

Quenton Jackson‘s 27 points willed Texas A&M (19-11, 8-9 SEC) over No. 25 Alabama (19-11, 9-8 SEC) 87-71 for their eighth loss to an unranked team this season. Jackson, who averages 14 points per game and is by far the Aggies most prolific scorer, fell four points short of his career-high.

The Aggies led by as many as 16 in the second half, but a failed comeback sent the Crimson Tide packing on Senior Night with a bitter taste in their mouth heading into their season finale on the road against LSU. An 8-0 run while up 9 points beginning with six minutes remaining in regulation ended the game before the final buzzer. Hassan Diarra’s 3-point bomb with under there minutes remaining pushed the lead to 15 and the fans in Tuscaloosa began to prematurely exit Coleman Coliseum.

Tyrece Radford equaled Jackson’s exciting performance with 22 points of his own to go with 8 rebounds. Henry Coleman notched 18 points and 11 rebounds himself as Texas A&M went on to score 50 second-half points. Alabama had three players score in double figures as well. Jaden Shackelford (16), Jahvon Quinerly (14) and Keon Ellis (13) combined for for 43 of the Crimson Tide’s 71 points on the night.

Texas A&M out rebounded Alabama 33-24 on the night and forced Alabama to shoot just 33 percent from the floor (26-54) to go with 19 turnovers. Alabama did out-assist the Aggies 18-13, but it wasn’t enough to overcome the lights-out shooting display the Aggies provided.