Everything Nate Oats said after Alabama's 94-85 loss to Auburn

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – No. 2 Alabama lost to top-ranked Auburn, 94-85, Saturday in Coleman Coliseum. After the Crimson Tide’s first loss in over a month (January 14), Alabama head coach Nate Oats spoke to a crowded room of reporters. Here is everything Oats said.

Oats’ opening statement…

“Obviously, it’s a disappointing loss. Give Auburn a lot of credit. They’re the No. 1 team in the country for a reason. They did a great job, I thought, on their defensive end, trying to take away our 3s. We didn’t shoot it very well, but they contested them. They did a good job contesting our shots at the rim, too. We had them for seven blocked shots, our stats. We didn’t make great rim reads, but they got us off the 3-point line, pushed us in and made big plays at the rim. We shot under 50 percent at the rim. Can’t do that.

“We didn’t convert at the free-throw line as well as their guards did. You look at their guards, they were 19-of-21 at the line. We only had two guys that were forwards go 100 percent at the line. So between our free throws, not finishing at the rim and not getting as many 3s off of them and then not making anywhere close to the level that they made them at, that ends up being the difference. Because I thought we played pretty hard. 

“We didn’t turn the ball over a whole lot. Our turnovers were down. It was seven. We out-rebounded them by nine. We had 14 O boards to their seven. But it’s other stuff. We stressed the turnovers, the rebounds. But we also wanted to get their shooters off the line. You go down the list, too many guys got 3s off that weren’t supposed to be getting easy ones off, and they go 12-of-30 from 3. They out-scored us by 21 points from 3, and that’s just too many with the plan that we were trying to execute on our defensive end.

“They’re a good team, both sides of the ball. We’ve gotta get better. I told our guys afterwards, when we got beat at home by Tennessee last year and on GameDay, I thought we had a major letdown. The leadership on the team didn’t rally us together enough to be ready to go on the road and play well at Florida. We got trounced pretty good on the road. 

“We’ve got better leadership this year. We’re not in full control of our own destiny to win outright. We are in full control of our own destiny to at least get a tie with the league moving forward, because Auburn’s now a game ahead of us, and we got Auburn at their place. So we’ll see what type of maturity and leadership we have by how we come in on Monday.

“We’ll be off tomorrow. We’ll come in on Monday and be ready to go. We’ll put the scouting report together for Missouri, and then we’ve got to play. It’s not an easy stretch. The last seven games, I think, is probably the hardest seven-game stretch of anybody in the country at any point. And we obviously didn’t plan on starting it out with the loss, but we did. 

“So we got three home games, three road games left in the last six games of the year, and we gotta bring it. So our mindsets got to be better than they were last year, after the home loss, after GameDay was here. So that’s how I challenged our guys after the game. And we got plenty of stuff we can clean up on, starting with our ball movement. 

“Part of the reason you shoot 48 percent at the rim is you don’t move the ball. We get seven shots blocked, and we only had eight assists. It’s a season-low by far. The other time we were low was Ole Miss. We had 11 assists. Had a little bit of similar issues where the ball didn’t move too much iso. At least we didn’t turn it over 20 times this game, but it was just too many bad shots. We didn’t get enough shots on offense, and defensively, we gave them too many 3s. And they’ve got guys that make tough 3. We told our guys, don’t look at the bench after they make a tough 3. That’s what they do. So we can’t let them get off. 

“Shoot, I think, was it Jones that hit the banked 3 in. Baker-Mazara had a couple step-backs. Well, don’t let them get them off, so they’re not looking at us when they hit some tough 3s. So we need to do a little bit better job executing the game plan. We need to do a better job putting together a little bit better game plan as coaches next time we play them. But they’re a good team. We know that. They’ve proven to be the No. 1 team in the country. We were not today. But we move on. We’ve got six games left before the SEC Tournament. We need to be great in all six.”

Oats on how much being held scoreless at the end of the first half was a missed opportunity…

“It was huge. We talk about starts and closes to halves. (They) started out 9-0 in the game. I think they ended the half on a 6-0 run, if I’m told correctly. So that’s 15 points right there. Come out in the second half, it goes from nine to 14 before the first media timeout. That’s another five points. So now you’re up to 20. And then I believe we tied it at one point with six – it was tied at 68-68, I believe at one point. I don’t know how much time was up there. Well, if you take it from there on, we get out-scored by nine, so we lose the game for nine. 

“So the start to the first half, end of the first half, start to the second half, end of the second half, they’re plus-29 if you take those runs together. We talk about starts and closes to halves a lot, and we did an awful job. They did a great job. So yes, to answer your point, the scoreless run we closed the half out with, not good. We go in down nine. So we got to do better on both sides of the ball the starts and closes to both halves moving forward.”

Oats on how Mark Sears finished at the rim…

“Not good. He shot 4-for-17. Obviously, he’s a competitor. He wants to win at a high level. He’s been able to impact winning for most of his career by scoring the ball. We had him 2-for-6 at the rim. 2-for-11 from three, 2-of-6 at the rim, those are typically the efficient shots you get. I thought maybe a couple of them – I thought he got fouled on one, but refs aren’t gonna be perfect, and we sure weren’t perfect as coaches or players. There’s probably some missed reads in there, I’ve got to go back and look at them. It wasn’t one of his better shooting nights.

“When he did get it going there kind of in the middle of the second half, I thought his defensive intensity picked up, and that’s when we made the run, tied it up. We’ve gotta be able to play hard even when shots aren’t going well. I think that’s a sign of high-character guys. How hard do you play when shots aren’t dropping? Can you keep moving the ball? Maybe sometimes he needs to get 10 assists. The whole team only had eight assists today. Nobody had more than two, so it wasn’t just him that maybe didn’t move it as much. Him and ‘Baron had two each, and then nobody else had more than one assist. The ball just wasn’t moving well period for our entire team. 

“His finishing at the rim wasn’t great. He was 33 percent at the rim. The whole team was 48 percent at the rim. You go down the list: Dioubate missed at the rim, he’s got to make. Labaron missed some at the rims, he’s got to make. Jarin missed the one, he’s got to put two hands on it and dunk the ball. Grant missed plenty of shots, he was 5-for-10 at the rim. I’m going down the list: Mo Dioubate, 4-of-9. Grant, 5-of-10. Sears, 2-of-6. Holloway, 1-of-3. We missed a lot of reads. So we’ve gotta be better. We’ve gotta move the ball better. We’ve gotta be a little bit more unselfish moving forward.”

Oats on the lack of production when trailing by three points or less…

“I don’t have an answer to why that may have happened. Maybe you give some credit to Auburn. It was a tight game. They were playing hard, forced some tough shots. They’re a good defensive team. They put together a good game plan. If there’s a tight game, we got to do a better job finding better shots if the game’s tight. There’s human nature and tendency to loosen up. So maybe when they were up 14, maybe they gave up some better shots to us. I don’t know. I don’t have a great answer to that. A good stat. As I’m watching the game and breaking it down, I’ll be looking at why we went (3-of-12) when the game was tight. I don’t have a great answer to that one right now.”

Oats on what led to him addressing the crowd about throwing things on the court…

“I have no idea what happened, other than the administration told me somebody threw something on the floor. If they did it again, we were going to get a T in a game that was going to be tight. Not quite sure what the score was at that point. We weren’t trying to give away free points. So if that was one of our fans, disappointed. It doesn’t help us win. Not sure what they’d be throwing some of the floor for anyways. It’s just asinine. So don’t do dumb stuff. We tell the players not to do dumb stuff. If they get flagrants, you can give the other team free points. We’re trying to win the basketball game on the scoreboard. We try to get our players not to do dumb things to give away three points. Let’s try to get the fans to do dumb things to give away free points.”

Oats on if he has ever had to scold a crowd like that…

“I don’t think I’ve had to do it in college ever. Obviously, I was a high school coach for 11 years. We had brawls break out in stands back in high school. I have not had to do that in college yet, though. It just takes one person to throw something. We had our attendance at 13,500 people here. So 13,499 were hopefully really well-behaved. It takes one person to ruin it for everybody. So let’s make sure we don’t have that happen again.”

Oats on Alabama’s transition defense…

“I see the stats they have. These aren’t always accurate. They got 19 fastbreak points for us and 13 for them. Listen, they hit the one 3 that was huge. That’s the one that resonated with me off the top of my head. I have to go back and watch it to remember the other stuff. We did get a little bit in transition. We play fast. They don’t quite play as fast as us, but they’ll definitely take advantage. And it’s more they try to play fast on live-ball turnovers more than anything. I don’t think we had many. 

“We had seven turnovers. Mark had the one and he got fouled, so they didn’t score off that. I think Labaron had the one that he missed Cliff on. Holloway had the one late that they just dribbled the ball out because the game was over by that point. I’m not sure if we had any more than that. So I don’t know how much they scored off our live-ball turnovers. They had points from turnovers, three. So I must be missing one somewhere.”

Oats Alabama’s playing good basketball coming out of halftime…

“We have. That’s why we switched the starting lineup a few weeks ago coming out of the half. And you know what? If we have to again, maybe I should have tonight. Sometimes in these big games, you’re not trying to make a teaching point, you’re trying to win the game, and I thought sticking with the starting lineup maybe gave us, but I was wrong. Sometimes coaching is not an exact science. There’s a feel to it. And obviously, I was wrong because it went from nine to 14 and way too quickly there to start the second half. 

“We’ve had an issue that the starts to the second half are not good. I’m gonna have to go back and look at the start of this one to see why, who, maybe what we should have done. We had the leverage numbers at half. Not everybody was great, some of the guys’ +/-. But we decided to try to stick with them and see if we could challenge them. But maybe it wasn’t the right decision.”

Oats on the scouting of Auburn guard Denver Jones’ defense…

“We call them seals, guys you can go after. He was definitely not one of those on their team. You look at his +/-, he played 31 minutes. I don’t have their leverage numbers. My guess would be his defensive leverage was really high because he was plus-18 when he was in. That’s pretty good they win by nine, plus-18 when he’s in. I’m sure they wanted him on Sears, and Sears shoots 4-of-17 tonight. I’m guessing Jones a big part to do with that. 

“We got to do a better job helping Mark get better shots. The coaching staff didn’t do a great job on our offensive side of the ball today making sure we got enough quality shots. And part of that was obviously Auburn’s game plan, and part of that was Denver Jones executing the game plan at a pretty high level for them. So we knew he was good. I’m not sure I would say I knew he was that good to force Mark to go 4-of-17, but obviously, he was pretty good tonight.”

Oats on his message ahead of this final stretch…

“We’ve got six tough games, and we got to be ready for every last one. We talk a lot about adversity. Sometimes it makes you better. There’s a book by Ryan Holiday called ‘The Obstacles.’ The way we were as a staff before, no teams are any good that don’t face a little adversity. Like every goal that we’ve got left remaining is still in our control, and that’s got to be the mindset. 

“Nobody’s feeling good today. We just lost to our archrival. Had a chance in our own gym to do it. Brought GameDay in here. It was a great environment. It’s why we play, love these games. But we came out with an L. So how do we respond? I told them, this is real-life stuff. Shots aren’t dropping, something happens in life. Are you a frontrunner? Do you only got the right attitude when stuff’s going well? Or do you got enough character, enough intestinal fortitude to play just as hard when stuff’s going well? Or are you giving everything you’ve got to your job when stuff’s not going well at home? Whatever it is, these are life lessons that we gotta learn. 

“So we faced the mercy in the game, and we did a pretty good job, and sometimes I didn’t think we did a very good job. Katie has to talk at 6-0 run or whatever the run was at the end of the first half. I thought some guys’ shots didn’t drop, and their effort dropped. Disappointing. I thought in the second half, we get down 14, our effort, we pick up and make some plays. Obviously, we know Dioubate is gonna play hard. But we make a run and we come back. There’s adversity within the game. There’s adversity from game to game. 

“Well, we got adversity. We just dropped our second home game. We haven’t lost many home games here in the last five years. We lost to our rival. We had a chance to become No. 1 in the country. We had a chance to be No. 1 in the league. All that’s out right now. What we have right now is a chance to play again on Wednesday against Missouri, and we got to answer the bell. 

“We lift after games. That’s the way Henry does it. They’re in the weight room right now. I told them, we’ll see. You guys give an honest effort in the weight room. Let’s have some maturity. Let’s come in on Sunday, get your treatment from Clarke and come in on Monday morning, go through the cleanup, put the Missouri scout in. We gotta be ready to go. So hopefully we’re mature enough and have enough leadership on this team that the adversity we just faced in the game tonight makes us a better team three weeks from now, four weeks from now, five, six, seven weeks from now, and we’re better off for this loss.”

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