Nate Oats shoulders blame for Alabama's late-game collapse at Tennessee
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – Alabama led Tennessee by four points with 30 seconds left to play, but the Crimson Tide walked out of Thompson-Boling Arena with a 79-76 loss to the Vols.
After buzzer-beater loss, Nate Oats shouldered the blame for the late-game collapse.
“I feel like I failed these guys,” Oats said. “For 39 and a half minutes, they out-played them.”
Labaron Philon gave Alabama a 76-72 lead with a free throw with 36 seconds remaining. Chaz Lanier quickly responded six seconds later with a layup on the other end to trim the Tide’s lead to 76-74. Grant Nelson fouled Lanier, but the Vols guard missed the subsequent free throw before Jarin Stevenson picked up a foul that sent Jahmai Mashack to the line.
Mashack made both free throws to tie the game with 0:30 to play. Alabama maintained possession after a jump ball, which led to Oats calling a timeout to draw up a play to potentially win the game. But that UA design was never executed, as Philon turned it over on a five-second violation, giving the ball back to Tennessee with 3.8 seconds left to go.
Oats had a timeout to use, but Alabama’s sixth-year head coach didn’t call it to save Philon.
“We didn’t do a great job closing it,” Oats said. “I’m gonna take most of the blame for the last 30 seconds. It’s on me. I subbed our bigs out to get the rebound before I should have. I shouldn’t have subbed them out until after we secured the rebound. So that was on me.
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“And then I had a chance to call a timeout – coaches can call timeouts on the in-bounds play – and at four, I should have called it. I thought we were getting it in, and that’s on me.”
Mashack threw up a shot as the final horn sounded, and the Vols beat Alabama at the buzzer.
The Tide led Tennessee by as many as nine points, and as late as the 10:15 mark in the second half. It didn’t help that Alabama struggled at the rim (12-of-29 on layups) and at the free-throw line (17-of-26) against the Vols’ pesky defense. But speaking to reporters after the 3-point loss, Oats placed the disappointing road loss, particularly late, on his own shoulders.
“We probably could have had better guys in, been a little smaller with 3.8 on the clock to make sure they didn’t get the ball up the floor,” Oats said. “We work on end-of-game situations in practice and expect our players to be good at them, and I was not good for the last 30 seconds today.”
Alabama will look to bounce back on Wednesday, March 5, when it hosts No. 3 Florida.
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