Everything Nate Oats said after Alabama's 99-81 loss at Auburn

AUBURN, Ala. – No. 16-ranked Alabama lost to No. 11 Auburn, 99-81, on Wednesday night at Neville Arena. After the Crimson Tide’s second loss in conference play, head coach Nate Oats spoke to reporters. Below is everything he said after Alabama dropped to 16-7 on the year.

Oats’ opening statement…

“It was a great game, great environment. It wasn’t a great game, but the environment was great. Auburn was ready to go, and we weren’t. This was for first place. They came out and played like it was for first place. We played like we’d still be in first place if we won, which is a little disappointing because we could have separated ourselves a little bit, and we didn’t. Now, I’m guessing – I haven’t looked at the scores – I’m guessing we’re in a four-way tie in the loss column for first place. So we’ve got some work to do in these last eight games.

“They were better than us. They played harder. They out-rebounded us. They were up on the glass most of the night. They took advantage of our smaller lineup inside. They turned us over. We didn’t turn them over. A lot of the effort stats that you look at – rebounds, turnovers – they were better than us. We’ve got to go back. We’ve got to play harder. They were definitely the better team, more prepared and they were ready to go tonight.”

Oats on the team’s start to this game compared to the last Auburn game…

“We didn’t play very well at the beginning of that game. We were better on offense this game, but our defense – it’s like we’re content with just trading baskets. We had no problem scoring at the beginning of the game, but I think about after the first two media timeouts, I think it was on pace to be about 110 or 120 or 90 or 100. We’d have a shootout. So it’s great that our offense can be clicking. And then it wasn’t, so then when your defense isn’t there and your offense goes away, then they open up a big lead, which is what happened. 

“I give them a lot of credit. They were down 14 at the half at our place. They came out the second half, played really hard and got back in the thing. When we were down 14, we didn’t come out and do much damage. I think we maybe cut it to 11 at one point. I don’t know how close it got, but it didn’t get that close. They did a great job of keeping their foot on the gas and making sure we didn’t get back in the game.”

Oats on if the issues inside or effort or scheme…

“Look, we didn’t want to double because I saw other teams have doubled and gave up a bunch of threes to them. In hindsight, as bad as we lost, maybe we should have doubled more and then try to rotate around and try to take the three away. They only hit five threes tonight. The problem is they went to the free-throw line 50 times and shot 40 out of 50 free throws. 

“And their bigs, 9-for-10, 9-for-11 between their starting four and five in (Jaylin) Williams and (Johni) Broome. And they’re both good. They may have the best frontcourt, when you look at the four and the five, in the league. And we didn’t do a very good job with it. And part of it is we started small, and they punished us. We’ve got to have a better answer for it if we’re going to continue to start small like that.”

Oats on how to limit fouls…

“We’ve got to be more disciplined. Some of them are just bad fouls. We’ve got to stay in front of the ball better. If guys get beat and they’re fouling after they get beat, we’ve got to do a better job in the post. Some of our guys just aren’t following scouting report stuff. Like we tell you what the guys are going to do and they do exactly what we tell you they’re going to do, and we don’t do a very good job guarding it. So there’s multiple reasons. Some of it is effort. I mean, the team that plays harder sometimes fouls less because they’re in position and they’re where they’re supposed to be. And when you’re a step late and you’re not where you’re supposed to be, you end up fouling.”

Oats on if he anticipated Auburn being able to take advantage of the small lineup…

“We did go with bigger lineups. We played Jarin (Stevenson) at the four with Grant (Nelson) at the five. We played Grant at the four with (Nick) Pringle at the five. We played Mo Diobuate, Jarin and a five together at times. I mean, we were probably better on Williams when we did that, but even some of our big guys got posted and scored on. So maybe going small got him going and then he just had his confidence going. For Williams to score 26 and only hit one three, he did a lot of damage at the free-throw line and in the paint. We didn’t really debate starting bigger, but we definitely went bigger at times in the game and it didn’t do much.”

Oats on is there concern about how to handle bigs long-term…

“We’ve had issues with frontcourt guys all year, to be honest with you. We had that stretch of three games with (Zach) Edey and (Oumar) Ballo and (Ryan) Kalkbrenner, and we didn’t do a very good job on, for sure, Edey and Ballo. We fouled too much. We were not in position. We let it get in too easy. We get ducked in too easy. I thought Grant did a really good job on Tolu Smith. That’s probably the one game I can remember off the top of my head that we’ve played a legitimate post-up big that we’ve done a decent job on. Other than that, we haven’t. We tried to double at times, and different doubles, we gave up threes. But yeah, it’s an issue. We’ve got to get better inside.”

Oats on Rylan Griffen…

“He shot it well both games against them. He had the one drive tonight that he scored off of. He’s got to be able to get downhill when they press up into him a little bit more. And then again, he’s small at the four. We tried to go with the four guards. We need him to do a little bit better job defensively. As well as he shot it from three, his +/- wasn’t very high tonight. He was the worst on our team, even though he’s been one of our better defenders. But we’ve been putting him on guards. 

“So we’re going to have to figure out whether teams have post-up bigs like Williams, is it smart for us to leave the starting lineup the way it is and leave it on him? It didn’t work tonight. But offensively, he’s getting better and better. He’s shooting it better. He’s been better in pick-and-rolls. He can get downhill, but we probably need to get him downhill a little bit more when he’s getting pressed up into like they were.”

Oats on tonight’s blue-collar point totals…

“They beat us by 25. We had it charted at 96.5-71.5. We almost had 120 – I think we had 118 against Mississippi State. So we had almost half of what we had last game. We didn’t play hard enough. We had multiple guys that played enough minutes that had one, 1.5, two, three. Guys that played 30 minutes had three blue-collar points. We didn’t play hard enough tonight.”

Oats on Mark Sears…

“He’s been our best player all year. They know, Auburn knows who scores our points. They did a pretty good job on him for most of the game. He got loose at times. But we’ve got to have some other guys step up. We’ve got to have some other guys rebound it better. He did play almost 37 minutes, so he was in there more than anybody to get more rebounds. But we’ve got to have some other guys be able to make some plays. We may need to play him off the ball a little more.

“And honestly, we need Mark to play better defense. Like we’re not going to be able to win at the level we’re used to winning at around here if he’s not better for us on defense. But we do need some guys to step up and help him out on offense a little bit more.”

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