Alabama needs to have same level of respect for every game, Oats says

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – The Alabama men’s basketball team set an SEC record for the longest single-season streak of road games with 85 or more points on Wednesday night at Mississippi State. The Crimson Tide is 6-1 in games played at Coleman Coliseum this season.

Alabama (18-3, 7-1 SEC) hasn’t been as consistent on its home floor, and head coach Nate Oats wants to buck that recent trend when the Tide hosts Georgia on Saturday, Feb. 1.

“Looking to get good 40 minutes on both sides of the ball, an entire 40,” Oats said. “Probably the closest we’ve had was our first home game against – at least at home – our first one against Oklahoma.

“… We’re gonna have to come ready to play. We have not played that great in our last three home games. We’ve gotta be a little better here at home.”

Alabama is 9-1 at Coleman Coliseum this season, but its last three games against Ole Miss, Vanderbilt and LSU have all featured lulls. The Tide lost to the Rebels, 74-64, it gave up 56 second-half points to the Commodores and it was tied with the Tigers at halftime.

In 10 games at home, Alabama is averaging 89.2 points per game, while in seven true road contests, the Tide has scored 91.6 points per outing. As Alabama enters the final 10 games of the 2024-25 regular season, Oats would not only like to see his team play similarly at home as on the road, he would like the Tide’s players to treat every opponent the same.

“Apparently our offense is showing up on the road a little bit more than it is at home,” Oats said. “I think maybe some of that’s our guys’ mentality. They know it’s gonna be tough. It seems like these guys rise to the occasion when they know it’s gonna be a tough game. 

“You look at some our better teams we’ve played, we’ve played our better games. We go at A&M, at Kentucky, at Mississippi State and we play well. That’s a good sign, but it’s also a sign of like if you can get yourself up for a game you know is gonna be hard on the road, why aren’t we getting ourselves up for a home game that maybe we don’t give the same type of respect to some of the opponents? I don’t understand that. It’s a little frustrating. 

Oats continued, “I’d like to see us come in and show the same respect to Georgia because they deserve it. This team beat Kentucky, it was a 2-point game with Auburn, who is the best team in our league metric-wise by a long shot. This team needs our full respect. We’ve tried to tell them. I hope guys are mature enough to give it that, and I hope we play with the sense of urgency and effort that it takes to beat a really good team like Georgia.

“But yeah, I think guys know it’s supposed to be a harder game on the road and these teams have been better teams and we’ve shown up with a little bit more sense of urgency and a little bit higher level of respect for some of these road games, which is good and bad at the same time. We’ve just gotta come with the same level of respect every game.”

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