Nate Oats shares excitement for fans after winning SEC Championship

The Alabama Crimson Tide are SEC regular season champions for the second time in three years. That’s one heck of an accomplishment for head coach Nate Oats in just his fourth year with the program.

Wednesday night, the Tide erased a 17-point second-half deficit to come all the way back and beat Auburn on their home floor to lock up their the 2022-23 SEC regular season title. This time, compared to their last crown in 2021, the Tide were even more dominant, with just one conference loss all year prior to a trip to College Station for a matchup with second-place Texas A&M in the SEC finale this weekend. Win or lose, Alabama will return to Tuscaloosa as league champions ahead of next week’s SEC Tournament.

Had Auburn not been smashed in the final 10 minutes of play after going up 17 and beaten the Tide, Alabama would have had to win the regular season title at A&M, similar to how they clinched in ’21 on the road vs. Mississippi State. However, Nate Oats is glad that his guys were able to take care of business vs. the Tigers so that they could celebrate the championship with their home fans this time around.

“These fans have been great since we’ve got here. I was really happy we were able to win this thing outright, do the celebration in Coleman,” said Oats. “Winning it two years ago was great, but you’re on the road in a COVID environment at Mississippi State. Tonight was special. And we talked about it before the game. At the under-8 timeout, we needed to play a little harder. I said, ‘We’re not losing this game because we didn’t play hard enough to win it,’ and our guys came out and played harder. So it was special to do it here at Coleman.”

Those home fans were probably pretty deflated once Alabama was down by 17 with roughly 10 minutes to play. However, thanks to their unwavering and raucous support, the Tide were able to snap back into gear and hold Auburn to six scoreless minutes as they climbed back into the game and eventually forced overtime, where, of course, Alabama prevailed. Just an awesome night in Tuscaloosa for Nate Oats and ‘Bama amid the circus going on off the court.

Alabama is now officially your one-seed in the SEC Tournament and a surefire one-seed in the NCAA Tournament if they’re able to sweep the conference titles this year.