Noah Gurley makes major decision on future with Alabama

Noah Gurley, a senior forward for the Alabama Crimson Tide, is set to return for a fifth season, head coach Nate Oats revealed Thursday afternoon on his radio show. He spent the first three seasons of his collegiate career as a starter for Furman.

“He told us this past week that he is going to come back next year,” Oats said of Gurley. “We are super happy to get him back. I think he is going to be dynamite next year with a year under his belt.”

Gurley is averaging 7.5 points and 3.6 rebounds per game off the bench for the Crimson Tide this season. His best outing this season came in during a winning effort over the Tennessee Volunteers on Dec. 29, scoring 20 points on 8-10 shooting. He added to his scoring totals with 10 rebounds for his one and only double-double of the season.

Nate Oats: Defense was not going to be enough to beat Kentucky

Alabama had an advantage against Kentucky heading into their matchup Saturday due to injuries inside the Wildcats’ back court, and head coach Nate Oats wanted to highlight having two of UK’s best defenders and primary ball handlers in TyTy Washington and Sahvir Wheeler out of the lineup.

The did exactly that early and often, leading Kentucky by as much as 13 points in the first half, but the Crimson Tide failed to keep their foot on the gas and fell to the No. 4 team in the nation 90-81 while getting swept in the season series at the same time.

“We kept telling them after the hot start, our defense wasn’t going to be good enough to win the game,” Oats said.

That effort that Oats was alluding to showed up after the final media timeout in the first half. Alabama got outscored 19-5 before halftime and saw a double-digit lead turn into a one-point halftime deficit in the blink of an eye. Once out of the locker room, Kentucky went on a 24-12 run to essentially end the game at 71-58 with just under 12 minutes remaining.

“It’s very frustrating to watch,” Oats said after the loss in Lexington. “It’s not a recipe to win on a consistent basis. And that’s why I think we’ve seen the ups and downs we’ve had this year.”

Sitting at 17-10 on the year, Oats hasn’t been shy to give constructive criticism to his players publicly. He’s said before if he didn’t feel that his players were giving their all, there was a spot on the bench with their name on it. 

“It’s disappointing to lose games when I feel like our effort wasn’t where it needed to be to win a road game,” Oats said. “Guys got to figure out how hard they need to play to win these road games, because we’ve got two more road games left. We need to win them. We got figure out how to play a lot better on the road.”

Despite the poor performance defensively, Alabama can at least hang their hats on the fact that they had the No. 4 team in the country, and No. 6 team overall in the initial early March Madness seedings with their backs against the wall early. Keon Ellis led the charge with a season-high 28 points on 7-11 shooting beyond the arc (10-16 overall) while playing 37 minutes for Oats and the Crimson Tide Saturday.