Everything Nate Oats said after Alabama's 94-88 win at Texas A&M

No. 5 Alabama defeated No. 10 Texas A&M, 94-88, on Saturday night in College Station, Texas. After the Crimson Tide won its eighth game in a row to advance to 14-2 (3-0 SEC), head coach Nate Oats spoke to reporters. Here is everything Oats said following the win.

Oats’ opening statement…

“That was a tough, hard-fought, physical game. That’s what they do. I don’t know what it is about this area of the country because our game against Houston, not too far from here, felt like the same deal, ike whoever could get the most rebounds. I mean, they were all over the glass. I mean, our guys, I thought, did well. We still gave up 32 second-chance points. So what they do great – turn people over – they turned us over 15 times. Go to the O boards, they got 32 second-chance points. We weren’t great at either of those. We were good enough to win. It’s a good thing we shot the ball well from three in the first half. It kind of evened out a little bit, but that’s a little bit more what we expected to shoot this year. We’ve kind of been struggling. So if you get the right guys taking them, you shoot a higher percentage. Sears was 4-of-10, CY, who’s been a great shooter his whole career, is 3-of-6 and Holloway is 3-of-6. So get those guys taking them, we’ll be a better shooting team, and we got those guys taking them in the first half. 

“We ended up out-rebounding them by eight, which at times, it sure didn’t feel like it. But Cliff, in limited minutes – and I’ll say a lot about Cliff, man. A lot of guys would have just sat that one out after they rolled their ankle like he did, and he manned up, wanted to play, wanted to be there for his teammates. He ends up with 10 rebounds in 16-plus minutes, and you can’t say enough about it because we ended up getting 54 and he got about 20 percent of our rebounds. So big game for him. I thought a lot of guys played well for us. The second game in a row, Jarin – we chart these blue-collar points. They’re kind of hustle plays that we knew we’d have to make a bunch of them because that’s what Texas A&M does. I mean, they’re hard-playing, tough, hard-nosed. Jarin won that. So can’t say enough about what he’s been able to do here the last couple of games, either. 

“But this is a game, if you plan on winning the league, and we’re trying to do that. We’ve won it multiple times here since I’ve been here. You gotta go on the road and win these tough games. You’re up 15. You can’t let that thing slip away like it was close to. So a lot of credit to A&M for – and we’ve seen it. I mean, shoot, they were down 18 against Oklahoma, came back midway through the second half. So we told our guys, and sure enough, we’re up 15, here they come. They run it back. We had some dumb turnovers and gave up some O boards. They hit the three. Phelps is playing really well. He’s kind of, in my opinion, kind of taking Taylor’s role a little bit when Taylor’s out, and he’s done pretty well. He had 34 points, and then tonight, he had 24 in these last two games. So we didn’t do a great job on him, I didn’t think. We got to do a better job on guys like that, but we did good enough to somehow eke out a tough road win.”

Oats on his message during the timeout after the 7-0 run by Texas A&M…

“We gotta quit turning the ball over because they score off turnovers. We came out of the under-12 and immediately turned it over to them. We gotta eliminate turnovers. And then if we can get them going against our halfcourt defense, I believe that was when Phelps hit that three. It was in that run if I remember right. I don’t know for sure. I’d have to go back and look at everything. But we needed to get him off the line. He’s more than capable of making tough shots. His percentage isn’t great on the year, but we’ve seen him hit timely, tough threes, and he’s been a big-time scorer throughout his career. 

“So get back to not turning it over, get back to what we knew we had to do to win this game, make them take tough, non-rim twos. We didn’t want their shooters getting threes. And then keep them off the O board. So just kind of remind the guys what we had to do. They actually, I thought they were pretty good tonight, to be honest. I mean, they’re pretty good every night. But I thought they really attacked ua well. Honestly, we’re fortunate they could make free throws. If they could make free throws, this game would have been a little bit different.”

Oats on if it felt like Alabama was in control after going up by 15 points…

“No, way too much time left with the way they play. I mean, especially with some of our turnovers we’d had. A couple times, we turned it over and dodged a bullet. But we couldn’t keep turning it over like we were. I mean, they make tough plays, man. They’re a winning group. They expect to win. Buzz builds a winning culture, and they expect to win. When teams expect to win, they’re hard to put away, especially at home like this. So no, I didn’t feel comfortable until – I thought maybe when we were up six with under 20 seconds to go, maybe, but somehow, we give up an and-one, and then all of a sudden, it was never until the very, very end, I didn’t feel all that uncomfortable.”

Oats on if the number of fouls changes the way you play…

“We don’t really usually follow that much. I’ll have to go back and look at the film to see what – I mean, these guys play hard, physical. They run to the O boards. They were intentionally fouling us at the end to save clock and put us at the line when they were down, and somehow – I gotta go look. We got a lot of rebounding fouls called on us. I mean, we’d been stressing we got to keep them off the glass. I guess, maybe our guys, obviously, they must have been holding, trying to keep them off the glass. And they’re better at rebounding technique, and at least they weren’t holding us. We when we crash, we’re a pretty good offensive rebounding team, too. But I don’t know. It’s not a real smooth game. It took about three hours. I looked at my watch. We got done, it was almost 10 o’clock. So I’m sure it wasn’t – people expect three hours on a football game, not a basketball game, but it is what it is. If you keep fouling, they’re gonna keep calling them.”

Oats on if he walks away feeling more justified in being able to win the SEC…

“Look, they’re not going to lay down. I mean, Buzz has been here as long as I’ve been at Alabama, and he’s had some tough starts and then they get it together and they start winning. He’s gonna get these guys to bounce back. They’re gonna be right in that hunt for the league title. If you look at our schedule, I’m sure their schedule is not easy either, but we got some tough games. So we got a long ways to go before we’re having a serious conversation about winning a league title. But this game, if we’re fortunate enough to win the games we need to moving forward, this would be one that you look back on that was a big one, in my opinion, because I think they’re right there. I mean, they’re a top-10 team in the country. So to beat them on the road, it takes some toughness. It’s a big win for us.”

Oats on Texas A&M guard Zhuric Phelps…

“I’m very impressed. Gets downhill. We did an awful job in the first half. We kind of gave him his right hand. He got down there multiple times. We haven’t seen – basically, the Oklahoma game was the only game that he’s had this role because he’s been playing with Taylor. Man, now that he’s got his confidence going in this, when they do get Wade back, they’re going to be a really tough offensive team to guard, because who do you put your best perimeter defender on? Taylor’s been an elite scorer in this league for a long time, and all of a sudden, they have him. So I don’t want to say I was surprised because he just had 34 the last game. We tried to warn our guys, and we didn’t do a very good job on him, in my opinion.”

Oats on shots starting to fall for Chris Youngblood…

“Oh, so good. I mean, we knew what we were getting with him from South Florida. He was the conference player of the year. He shoots it at a really high clip. He just had to get off that surgery and get himself back comfortable. I told him he was gonna be able to get some shots this game. And we tried to kind of put him up with the press to have some other guys handle it, get him open. He goes 3-of-6, and he made a bunch of tough plays, too. He’s a winner. He’s a competitor. He’s a leader. You want him in. He ends up in foul trouble. I thought he did the best job on Phelps tonight, and that’s with him still not 100 percent because he’s still trying to get back from the ankle surgery. So his competitiveness, his winning attitude, and then, boy, it was great to see him drop some shots tonight.”

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