Nate Oats shares message to players on creating offense

Trying to get your players to buy in? There probably aren’t many more effective ways than preaching a consistent message, having the players buy into it and then seeing it result in a 101-44 stomping of a conference opponent. Suffice it to say Nate Oats‘ message to Alabama players on creating offense probably sunk in.

So what was Oats’ message?

Something pretty close to that old Eminem banger: Lose Yourself.

“I think it’s one of those deals when we tell our guys frequently, just lose yourself in the game and the offense will take care of itself,” Oats said. “The more you worry about whether your shot’s going in, how many shot attempts you get, to me that stuff backfires. The way you make shots is you get in the gym and you work your tail off.”

Oats had plenty of reasons to convince his guys they needed to hit the gym before that 101-44 Vanderbilt barn-burner, too.

After winning nine straight, Alabama was humbled by Oklahoma in the SEC/Big 12 Challenge, losing 93-69. There was a whole lot to fix.

So Oats calmly delivered his message, then let his guys work.

Alabama players get message on creating offense

It’s usually a good sign when your players take a loss hard. And by the sound of things, Alabama’s players were all ears after that loss to Oklahoma.

“Going into the game, we had all of our guys got in extra time with the assistants,” Oats said. “We’re not practicing long now, so we’re only going about an hour and a half. You get a four-hour window every day, so I mean between video and practice and weights we were only using two and a half hours or something, so guys had extra time. They all got in with assistants yesterday afternoon, got in extra shots. Not to say that that’s going to happen every time that we get in with the assistants, but the assistants did a great job making sure our guys between classes got shots up.”

With the work put in, there was no need to cute cute about creating offense. Oats figured it would flow so long as everyone stayed locked in.

Sure enough.

“Then when the game started it was all about locking into defense, making tough plays, lose yourself in the game, trust your work that you put in,” Oats said. “Lot of guys put in time in the gym and shots dropped. It’s amazing how that works.”