Nate Oats emphasizes better rebounding ahead of matchup with Florida

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – When No. 13 Alabama welcomes No. 24 Florida to Coleman Coliseum on Wednesday, it will mark the first ranked matchup between the two teams since 2007.

“It’s good for us,” head coach Nate Oats said. “It’s good for our fans to have a home game like this with two top-25 teams. It’s good for the SEC. But we’re going to have to play well to win.”

The Crimson Tide (18-7, 10-2 SEC) has won its last two games by scoring an average of 104.5 points per outing. Last time out, Alabama defeated Texas A&M, 100-75, for its eighth 100-point game of the year, and it won convincingly despite being dominated on the glass.

The Aggies finished with 49 rebounds (compared to 38 for the Tide) and 26 offensive rebounds. The 26 offensive boards were the most by an Alabama opponent this season and the only time the Crimson Tide has allowed 20 or more in 25 games this year. Texas A&M leads the nation with 18 offensive rebounds per game. Who’s No. 2? Florida with 16.12.

Although the Gators will be a handful on the glass, so will Alabama’s nation-leading offense – 127.4 points per 100 possessions, per KenPom – in their first of two meetings this season.

“We didn’t do a great job keeping A&M off the glass. We’ve got to do a better job against Florida,” Oats said. “They’re going to have to guard us, too. We’ve got the No. 1 offense in the country. They’re going to play two bigs. One of their bigs is going to have to guard a guard, and we’ll see how that goes.

“We’ve got to do a better job rebounding, and they’re going to have to figure out how to guard our guards. So it’ll be kind of a two-different-styles matchup.”

The Gators lead the nation in rebounding rate (44.16 rpg) and have three of the SEC’s top 10 rebounders entering the final three weeks of the regular season – Tyrese Samuel (7.9 rpg, 3rd), Micah Handlogten (7.3, 6th) and Alex Condon (6.6, 10th) pace Florida on the glass. Samuel (6-foot-10) and Handlogten (7-foot-1) have started the last 17 games together.

Florida has won seven of its last eight games, including three in a row, and ahead of this game, Oats said UA will continue to emphasize rebounding while preaching three points.

“We’ve got to turn them over more, so there’s less shots to get rebounds. We didn’t do a great job against A&M with that,” Oats said. “We need to keep them off the glass. We didn’t do a good job of that – they had 26 O boards. But we also said when they do get a rebound, they don’t get points for it. We’ve still got to get stops. 

“To give up 26 O boards and to only get out-scored by five, I think, on second-chance points was not bad. So I did think we did a decent job still getting stops. (Andersson) Garcia has eight offensive rebounds and only scores three points total. We did a decent job continuing to play, guard, not being deflated when you give up an O board. We’re going to have to do that.” 

Oats continued, “Now, hopefully, the 26 O boards we gave up against A&M get significantly reduced and hopefully the turnovers, we can turn up. But (Zyon) Pullin, their point guard, is No. 2 in the country in assist-to-turnover ratio. He doesn’t turn the ball over very much.

“It’s not like this is a team that comes in turning it over a lot. But if we could turn our pressure up with our guard guarding one of their bigs, hopefully, we can pressure a little bit more. We’ve got to do a better job with that.”

The Alabama-Florida game is set to tip-off at 6 p.m. CT on Wednesday, Feb. 21 (ESPN2).

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