Everything Nate Oats said after Alabama's 83-81 loss to Oregon

No. 9 Alabama lost to Oregon, 83-81, on Saturday in the Players Era Festival championship game. The Crimson Tide dropped to 6-2 with the loss, and after its final of three games in Las Vegas, Alabama head coach Nate Oats spoke to reporters. Here is everything he said.

Oats’ opening statement…

“That’s a tough way to lose a game. Our turnovers have been kind of haunting us here in Vegas, last game and this game, and the points off turnovers, 17-5. It’s hard to overcome that. We got to figure out a way to take care of the basketball better. It’s everybody. Everybody on the team except for Wrightsell turned the ball over tonight. We had multiple guys with multiple turnovers. Turnovers are 15-8, and the points are 17-5 off turnovers. It’s hard to overcome that. So I think that was the biggest issue. 

“We still had issues with guarding the post, and then we didn’t shoot it particularly well at stretches tonight. But we’re gonna have games like that. We’re gonna have to be able to overcome some poor shooting nights and get to the offensive boards. I thought we did a pretty good job on that. We had 15 O boards, but they had 12 themselves. So it’s not what we were looking to do out here, but that’s a good team. We gotta learn from it. We gotta play better and get ourselves regrouped for Carolina on Wednesday.”

Oats on Alabama’s experience in the Players Era Festival…

“We played three really good teams that all had different styles. We got exposed on different stuff from each of the three teams. Thought the tournament coordinators did a great job. It was great being there at MGM, staying in the same place you’re playing. So I enjoyed the tournament. Houston is one of the toughest teams in the country, and we had a battle with them. Rutgers has really talented guys. We got to figure out how to guard elite-level players a little better. And then Oregon’s just a really good overall, well-rounded, sound basketball team that did a great job tonight. We got to take care of the ball better. So played three really good teams. We learned a lot about ourselves, learned what we got to fix and we get back to the drawing board and fix some stuff.”

Oats on Latrell Wrightsell’s status…

“He’s got a lower-leg injury. They’re concerned about his Achilles, which obviously wouldn’t be good. They’re gonna get him evaluated once we get back. So we’ll get an MRI and see what we’ve got going. We’re keeping our fingers crossed there.”

Oats on shots starting to fall for Jarin Stevenson after an 0-18 start…

“I think this is the Jarin we were looking for this year. It’s great that he hung in there and got his confidence going. He made big plays. I thought he was really good for us on defense tonight. He made three threes tonight, made some obviously the game before. He’s gonna be a big part of what we do this year, and I’m really happy for him, he got it going. So we got to keep building him up. I mean, he’s supposed to be a freshman this year. 

“If you go back to when Clowney was with us, Clowney had a similar start, and then, shoot, I can’t remember exactly what he was, maybe 0-of-17, 1-of-17, 1-of-19, something like that, to start the year out and hit four of them before the first media time out against South Dakota State his freshman year. Similar start to what Clowney had. But he bounced out of it now, and hopefully, this will get him going because he shot pretty well. And he had a positive defensive leverage. So I think he’s really helping us on the defensive end, as well.”

Oats on Alabama’s offensive balance with five players in double figures…

“We’re pretty balanced. We had five guys in double figures. We tried to get the ball moving. We ended up with 21 assists on a poor shooting night from some of our better shooters, to be honest with you. So I thought we did a good job moving the ball. If we hadn’t turned the ball over 15 times, it would have been good. But we like to see it spread around a little bit. 

“We had five guys in double figures, and I think there’s other guys – Grant would be a guy that probably will be in double figures more often than not. Cliff can obviously be a scorer for us, too. Derrion’s had games. Mo’s had big games. We’ve got multiple guys capable of scoring double figures. To be able to put on 81 points when we didn’t particularly shoot it well, still turned it over 15 times, I think speaks to the depth that we have. But we got to use our depth and also not turn the ball over.”

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