Nate Oats preaches importance of strong start to conference play

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – The Alabama men’s basketball team will begin conference play tonight when it welcomes Oklahoma to Coleman Coliseum. After posting an 11-2 record in one of the nation’s toughest non-conference slates, the Crimson Tide faces an even more difficult stretch of league games, which tips off with a top-15 matchup with the Sooners.

“We’ve got our first conference game, and it’s not easy,” Alabama head coach Nate Oats said. “There’s three undefeated teams left in the country, and Oklahoma is one of them.”

Oklahoma, Tennessee and Florida sit atop the SEC standings as the league’s teams turn their attention toward one another. This comes after the now-16-team conference bullied the rest of the college basketball world during the first two months of the 2024-25 season. 

All 16 teams won at least 10 games during the non-conference portion of their schedules. The team currently in last place in the league, South Carolina, enters SEC play with a 10-3 record. The rest of the teams have won either 11, 12 or 13 games thus far, and collectively, the SEC has an 88.9 winning percentage, by far the best mark in league history.

According to ESPN Research, each of the 16 SEC teams has a winning percentage of at least .750, making it the first conference to do that entering January since the ACC did the same in 1983-84. The biggest difference? The ACC had just eight teams at the time.

“It’s been ridiculously successful,” said Oats of the league’s hot start this season.

The SEC has been dominant this year. It embarrassed the ACC in the challenge between the two conferences, 14-2. Ten SEC teams are ranked in the AP Top 25 Poll, which includes five among the top 10. Twelve teams are currently projected to make the 2025 NCAA Tournament, according to ESPN’s Joe Lunardi. The record is the Big East’s 11 in 2011.

Some of the usual suspects have helped make it happen, but the entire conference has pulled its weight leading up to this weekend’s game, including Alabama’s upcoming opponent.

“You see some teams like Oklahoma, who maybe people were projecting them to be in the bottom half of the league, and now, they’re 13-0. They’ve helped that tremendously,” Oats said.

“Tennessee and Auburn, everybody knows they’re one and two in the country. They’ve had an unbelievable start. Florida’s undefeated. They’re obviously really good, as is Tennessee. Kentucky’s playing really well. Even our teams that were maybe picked at the bottom are winning a lot of games. 

“To almost have a 90 percent non-conference winning percentage, that’s tough. It’s gonna be a tough league. I think there’s gonna be competition for who wins the league all the way up till the end. I think it’s gonna be hard for anybody to run away with it because there’s just no easy games in the league this year.”

Oats will guide Alabama into SEC waters for the sixth time beginning this evening. Well-aware of the challenge in front of the Tide, he knows what a win can mean for the rest of the year.

“We’ve done a pretty good job most years in conference play,” Oats said. “But you’ve gotta start the conference out well. The two years we’ve won the regular season, we’ve started out pretty good in the first half of conference play. This is a tough one to start with. 

“If you’re gonna have a chance to win the conference, you’ve gotta win your home games.”

Tonight’s Alabama-Oklahoma game will tip off at 5 p.m. CT and will air on the SEC Network.

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