Nate Oats previews Alabama's trip to Phoenix to face No. 4 Arizona

The Alabama men’s basketball team will take on No. 4 Arizona tonight as part of the Hall of Fame Phoenix Series. The late-night matchup (10 p.m. CT on ESPN) between the Crimson Tide (6-4) and Wildcats (8-1) will take place at Footprint Center, home to the Phoenix Suns.

This will mark the last of three straight games where Alabama will face a top-10 opponent. The Tide played then-No. 4 Purdue and then-No. 8 Creighton in its last two outings and is looking to snap a two-game losing streak in the finale of its brutal non-conference stretch.

It will not be an easy task, however, as Arizona ranks among the top 10 nationally in offensive and defensive efficiency, according to KenPom. The Wildcats are sixth in offense (120.4 points scored per 100 possessions) and third in defense (90.8). Alabama leads the nation in offense, per KenPom, at 124.4, but its defense currently sits at 105th (101.3).

Most of Nate Oats’ Tuesday press conference focused on the matchup with Arizona, so below is a full transcript of everything he said in advance of tonight’s game against the Wildcats.

Oats’ opening statement… 

“Another quality team. We scheduled quality teams to make ourselves better, to expose weaknesses and figure out how to get better with them. We’re 6-4. In our four losses, those teams are combined 37-6 right now. We haven’t lost to a bad team yet, but we’ve got to start to get some wins against some of these quality teams that we play. We don’t have an easy one here. It’s pretty much a road game being here in Phoenix against Arizona, and they’re a really good team. So we’ve got a lot of work to do. 

“They’re scoring the ball the paint at a high clip. I think it’s 416-242 in paint scoring that Arizona is up on their opponents. We’ve done a good job scoring the ball in the paint, as well. They’ve got real rim protection in (Oumar) Ballo, so we’re going to have to figure out a way to get the ball in the paint, score it. We may have to make a few more threes, kind of like we did against Purdue, but I’m looking forward to the game. 

“I think we’re continuing to get better. I feel like the best game we played was the Creighton game. I felt like the best one before that was the Purdue game. I do feel like we’re getting better every game, which is we’re playing very good teams and we’ve got to be great to beat them. And our biggest issues right now are with putting teams at the free throw line too much and not getting the free throw line enough ourselves. I mean, we’re essentially starting the game out in the hole with how much we’re putting teams a free throw line. So we’ve got to do a better job defending without fouling. Arizona does a really good job of that. If we’re going to try to have any chance of winning the free throw battle, we’re going to have to do a much better job on the defensive end of guarding without fouling.”

Oats on former Alabama guard Jaden Bradley, who is now at Arizona…

“When he left, he anticipated (Jahvon) Quinerly staying. I think he wanted a bigger role. He’s a really good player. Shoot, some people had him as the No. 1 point guard in a country in his class in high school. I’m good with Jaden. I think he left on good terms. He just wanted a bigger role. Nobody had anticipated Quinerly even coming back that year when Jaden had committed to us. Quinerly blew out his knee and had to come back, and then when all the NIL stuff came out and everything, all of a sudden it made sense Quinerly was going to stay in college even another year. That was kind of what went into that thought process. 

RELATED: Alabama basketball facing familiar foe in Arizona guard Jaden Bradley

“He’s playing a pretty big role here (in Arizona) on one of the best teams in the country again. We were No. 1 in the country last year. Arizona has been No. 1. So he’s had a significant role on two of the best teams in the country in his two years in college basketball. He’s a tough, gritty, smart, hard-nosed, high-IQ guy, and looking forward to playing against him.”

Oats on what he remembers about facing Caleb Love, Keshad Johnson…

“Caleb Love is one of the best scoring guards in the country. He went at us in that Carolina game. That was a tough, hard-fought game that went four overtimes. He’s talented, and he’s playing really well for Arizona right now. So we don’t have too many guys on this team here this year that actually – (Mark) Sears and Rylan (Griffen) would be the two perimeter players that would have a chance to be matched on him that played last year. And then Keshad Johnson, they were a tough, physical, great defensive team at San Diego State. He was part of that. He’s the best rebounder in the country for players 6-7 or under. We’ve got to do a better job trying to keep him off the glass, and then he’s just kind of a glue guy that does a lot of really good things for Arizona. And they’re a winning team, and he did a ton of really good things for San Diego State when they won at a high level last year. 

Oats on dealing with Arizona’s multiple 7-footers…

“I think their size, with their rim protection, comes into play on their rebounding. I think they lead the country in rebounding margin. I think it’s like plus 15 rebounds a game. So we’re going to have to do a good job. Our guards can rebound the ball. They’re going to have to get in there and help rebound. Our four men can rebound the ball. Our fives are going to have to do a better job rebounding the ball. But I think the way we play, we can spread them out a little bit. Their size becomes a little less relevant with the way we play and spread teams out. But we’re going to have to figure out a way to rebound the ball, and we’re going to have to figure out how we want to guard Ballo because our bigs are going to have a hard time guarding him one-on-one. It’s going to be similar to maybe the (Zach) Edey game. It’s going be a lot closer to the Edey game than it was this last game against Creighton.”

Oats on what he remembers about beating at Arizona when he was at Buffalo…

“I don’t think anybody was predicting us to handle Arizona like we did back in 17-18. We shot the three really well. I think we were 15-of-30 from three that game when I was at Buffalo. They were still playing two bigs. Very traditional with (Duran) Ristic and (Deandre) Ayton both starting. So Ayton was having a guard everybody’s four man. In a similar regard, we’re playing spread, taking a lot of threes here, but back at Buffalo, it was almost like you’re playing was with house money. Like nobody expected us to win. There’s not a whole lot of pressure on our guys. I told our guys before that game, ‘We need to shoot 50 threes, so put them up. We ain’t going to make them all, but if you’re open, we’re not passing up one shot all day. If you’re open, put it up.’ We ended up going 15-of-30, and that was a big win, a big win for the Buffalo program. 

“Our guys at Buffalo believed we could win that game, but nobody outside the program expected us to even be in that game. Here, I think people expect us to be in this game and have a shot to win. It’s a little different. There’s a little more pressure on us here than there was playing at Buffalo. But styles aren’t that much different. We’re going to shoot a lot of threes. Shoot, I haven’t told our guys we’ve got to get 50 up, but I wouldn’t mind getting 50 up. We got 46 up against Purdue, and offense wasn’t our problem. Back then it was Coach (Sean) Miller, now it’s Tommy (Lloyd) and they’re definitely different.

“But in similar regard, Tommy’s playing a lot faster, but they’re both punched in to pretty good bigs. And I do think our guards back then in 2018 were able to pressure their guards, made it difficult to throw the ball inside. I think our guards are going to have to be really good this game. I don’t think this team at Arizona relies nearly as much as that team on having to punch it in to Ristic and Ayton, but they definitely want to punch it in the Ballo and he’s good when they punch it in there. So there’s going to be some similarities between the two games.”

Oats on how Arizona differs from Alabama in the way it goes inside…

“If you go to Kenpom, I think we’re fourth in the country in offensive pace and they’re sixth, if I remember right. I think they’re getting theirs off turnovers. They turn people over a lot more. Off turnovers, they’re runing it. They’re also racing it up and trying to duck the big in and punch it into the big right out of the gate, where we’re racing it up, trying to leave the lane open, let our guards get downhill, shooting threes early in the clock. I think they’re in the 300s for three-point rate, like 302nd, 303rd. I’m not sure what the exact number is right now, but we typically have been one of the highest three-point rates in high-major basketball. 

“So in some regards, it’s similar in we’re both wanting to play fast. I don’t think either one of us is going to slow it down. I think they want the pace. They want to punch it in early. We want the pace. We want to attack them before the defense gets set. We’ve got to try to keep the ball out of the paint on their post duck-ins early. I’m sure they’re going to try to keep the ball out of the paint with our drives early. And we’ll see who wins. But shoot, Ballo can run. For a big fella, he can really move and get up and down the floor pretty well.”

Oats on how this series with Arizona came about…

“The people at the Hall of Fame brought it up to us. … It’s a Hall of Fame Classic, so they asked us. We want to play the best teams in the country, and Arizona has been one of the best teams in the country. I think, shoot, since Tommy took over, I think maybe they weren’t ranked his first two weeks, somebody told me, and they’ve been ranked every single week since. I think he’s on pace to be the winningest coach in his first three seasons in college basketball history, possibly. I mean, he’s done an unbelievable job. We want to play the best teams in the country. They threw it out there. We also need quality teams to play us in Birmingham. So yeah, we’ll play them in Phoenix. They come back and play us in Birmingham. So that was the agreement we made. We’ll have a quality team coming back to Birmingham next year, and we’re going to play a quality game in a big-time arena here in Phoenix.”

Oats on if Alabama’s foul issues start with the bigs or is more the defensive scheme…

“It’s both. It’s who we’re playing. But shoot, that’s two games. Look, (Ryan) Kalkbrenner is really good. Defensively, he’s great. He can step out and shoot a three. He’s 7-1. He’s not Edey, and he’s not Ballo. Edey fouling both guys out, he fouls a lot of guys out. The fact that we fouled out both guys against Kalkbrenner, our guys – Nick Pringle didn’t have one fall on Kalkbrenner either. You go back and look at all five of his fouls, they came on him having a guard guards that got downhill, him getting switched, having to guard some guards, different stuff. But he didn’t get any fouls actually guarding Kalkbrenner in the post. 

“We’ve got to do a better job with the scheme, helping keep these guys out of positions where they’re fouling and tempted to foul. They have to do a better job being disciplined on shot fakes, not grabbing guys, not putting themselves in a spot where they can get these fouls on them because we can’t have our starting center and backup center both fouling out and in less than 30 minutes combined game after game after game. Like it’s not a recipe for success. Our foul rate is keeping us from being a good defensive team. We’ve got to be better. So we’re going to try to help them, and our guards got to do a better job guarding the ball, not getting it downhill. We’ve got to do a better job coaching them, and they’ve got to do a better job being disciplined on the floor, not putting their hands on people and fouling people.”

NOTES TO KNOW

– Alabama is playing three straight AP top 10 opponents during non-conference for the first time in program history and the first time since the 2021-22 season (win vs. No. 4 Baylor, loss at No. 1 Auburn and loss vs. No. 5 Kentucky).

– Oats is 15-18 against AP Top 25 opponents and 5-7 against top 10 teams.

– Alabama has scored 921 points this season (92.1 ppg), the most any UA team has scored in the first 10 games of the season, surpassing last year’s team (830 points).

– The Tide is averaging 92.1 points per game, which ranks No. 3 in the nation. Alabama is making 19.9 free throws per contest, which ranks No. 4 in the country. UA has an effective field goal percentage of .577, which ranks No. 12 in the nation.

– Mark Sears is one of three players in Division I and the only Power 5 player in the country who has at least 210 points, 25 three-pointers, 35 assists and 40 rebounds this season. Sears ranks No. 16 in the nation in scoring (21.2 ppg), No. 8 in three-point percentage (48.1) and No. 24 in total points (212).

ABOUT ARIZONA

– Arizona head coach Tommy Lloyd’s record is 69-11 in his third season as a head coach. After setting the NCAA record for most wins in his first two seasons (61), the focus turns to the three-year record. The NCAA record for most wins through three seasons is 89 wins by Brad Underwood and Brad Stevens.

– The Wildcats have been ranked 42 straight weeks and 42 out of 44 weeks under Lloyd. They have been in the top 10 for 34 weeks and in the top five for 19 weeks.

– Arizona is one of four teams in the country with three wins over top-25 teams. The Wildcats have wins over then-No. 2 Duke, then-No. 21 Michigan State and then-No. 23 Wisconsin. Their only loss came in their last time out to then-No. 3 Purdue, 92-84, in Indianapolis.

– Arizona is outscoring its opponents 416-242 in the paint through nine games.

– Arizona leads the country in rebound margin (+17.9 per game), scoring margin (+30.1), second in scoring (94.0) and assists per game (21.6).

– All five starters are averaging between 12.3 and 14.1 points per game this season. At least five players have scored in double figures in seven of eight games.

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