Everything Nate Oats said after NCAA Tournament win over Grand Canyon

No. 4-seed Alabama defeated 12-seed Grand Canyon, 72-61, Saturday in the second round of the NCAA Tournament. Following the win in Spokane, Wash., Crimson Tide head coach Nate Oats spoke to reporters. Below is everything Oats said after advancing to the Sweet 16.

THE MODERATOR: We’ll start with an opening statement from Coach and then take questions for the student-athletes.

NATE OATS: Character win, I think. We had a chance, could have folded, had a lot of things that didn’t go our way, a lot of foul trouble. They lived at the free-throw line. Our guys started to show a little frustration and I thought we pulled it together and showed a lot of mental toughness. We’ve been using the word next a lot lately, next play, just go to the next play, like, forget about the call that didn’t go your way, forget about the turnover, forget about the offensive possession where you missed or your teammate missed. It doesn’t matter, just play hard on defense. This is one of our best defensive games of the year.

We fouled too much, they shot 37 free throws, we obviously benefited from them not shooting it great at the line, but when we didn’t foul, we got pretty good stops. Tyon Grant-Foster is the real deal. But he scored 29, went to the free-throw line 16 times and took 22 shots.

So I thought our guys weren’t bad on him. They forced him into a lot of tough shots. Mark, on the other hand, had 26 on 18 shots, only 11 free throws. So probably a little bit more efficient. But I thought Rylan did a great job on Tyon and Mo Dioubate came in late and was great on both ends, scored eight straight points. After Jarin fouled out, we needed a boost. His boost he gave us right there defensively and offensively. Rylan was in foul trouble. Jarin’s fouled out. I thought he was great.

So we’re playing next Thursday. There’s only going to be 16 left. I think our non-conference schedule got us ready for this. Four teams in the non-conference are all in the Sweet 16 and we lost to all four, but I thought we got better from it. So our defense is getting better as the year goes on. This might have been our best defensive performance of the year. It’s been our best for awhile and Wrightsell will be able to play with us Thursday. He got elbowed in the head, had a head injury. He’s had some real bad luck here lately, but we’re going to be playing again and he can play with us again on Thursday.

THE MODERATOR: All right. Let’s open it up to questions.

Q. Can you give us an update on No. 12?

NATE OATS: Latrell Wrightsell’s got a head injury, so he couldn’t play in the second half.

Q. You mentioned it was kind of your best defensive performance of the season. That final four minutes you guys didn’t allow a single point. What happened in that stretch that maybe sparked that run defensively?

NATE OATS: I didn’t realize they didn’t score in the final four minutes. What did we get down? We were down three? Four? We got down four at one point. Yeah, I think our guys — well, one, Mo Dioubate came in, and I’m looking right now on our defensive chart. Like, we were .64 on defense when he was in the game. Look at his regular stat line and 12 minutes he had five O boards, nine points, was a .64 on defense, just a tough player. He’s never afraid of the moment, just does all the dirty work all year. I’m super happy that he was able to come in and really help close this thing out for us.

So I thought Nick Pringle’s play was as good as he’s been all year. He didn’t necessarily score it a bunch, but he had nine rebounds, four O boards, Dioubate had five O boards. We ended up with 20 O boards on them. They were big plays, both of them, when they’re getting O boards. Mo Dioubate was not a great free throw shooter, he goes 3-3. So I thought Nick and Mo really helped set the tone and this is as good defense as Mark Sears has played all year. First double double of the year, he had 26-12. He played so much he was cramping there at the end. I didn’t feel like I could take him out much with Wrightsell not available in the second half. But we were .79 when he was in the game. So he was really locking up and leading and talking to guys and getting them to play hard.

So I think you had a group in there with Sears, Rylan, Aaron — Aaron’s been a really good defender all year, Mo Dioubate, and Nick Pringle that it was all about getting stops and then taking care of the ball and then we were able to step up to the free-throw line and make some free throws.

Q. You talked about how character won you the game. Can you just explain how important attitude is going into big games like this before during and after the game?

NATE OATS: Listen, I thought our attitude was good coming in. We were focused on the right things. And you heard Mo talk about losing himself in the game. Focus on making the tough blue collar defensive-minded O boards, great screen assists. Focus on that. The offense will come. Our offense, this was one of our worst offensive games. You got to give Grand Canyon a lot of credit too. They got great athletes, they got rim protection, they made it harder on us. So they’re a good defensive team, but we just missed some shots too. Some guys missed some free throws maybe.

So I thought when we got a lead, we didn’t do a great job extending that like we could have. They took the lead and we could have folded easy. There was a time when I got the — like, we got to change our energy. So attitude during the game — it’s basketball. There’s going to be tough calls, I mean, just tons of marginal calls. Some go against you, some go for you. You can’t live and die on every call that goes against you. I thought our guys did a pretty good job, some calls that were marginal that they got, and then we had calls that were marginal that we got.

Like, what our guys did a better job tonight just moved to the next play. Whether it was a missed layup on their own, a turnover on their own, a call that didn’t go our way, like, we were able to just next play, next play. We’d get down — they got a great crowd here. Shoot, whatever their administration, their school’s doing to get the crowd — I played once there when I was an assistant at Buffalo a long time ago. They had a great crowd then. I think it’s much better now. But they had a lot of people here. That thing got loud when they got the lead and then our guys just hung in there and got stops and just the whole attitude of we got to get a stop and move to the next play was big.

Q. I know you’re in foul trouble and you don’t have Latrell, but what was the thought of going to Mo in that situation there with like five, six minutes to go? And as you’re watching him contribute that way offensively are you like, where has this been all season kind of thing or how were you looking at that?

NATE OATS: He’s been a tough player all year. He’s struggled sometimes on offense to grab some of the concepts and he even said it happened in high school. It took him a little while to get familiar with the system and he ended up being NEPSAC Player of the Year, which is a really good league.

So we knew we needed some tough plays. We also knew they’d give up a lot of threes. So analytically thinking we need some three-point shooters in, Sam Walters, Griffin, Sears, Estrada, Mo doesn’t really fit that bill, and we were lacking some toughness there, and let’s put a guy in that’s going to make some tough plays. And shoot, he played 12 minutes, had five O boards. I thought Pringle made some really good reads in the pocket. Sears hit Pringle, Mo cuts, scores, got to the O boards. He just made some stuff happen. I’m super happy for him. I mean, he literally has the greatest attitude. I mean, NEPSAC Player of the Year doesn’t play a ton as a freshman, some games he doesn’t play at all, and never had one second of any kind of poor attitude. He’s just been an unbelievable kid all year. So super happy he came in and won this game for us.

Q. Your theme is blue collar basketball. This game in particular what were your thoughts on how physical and how emotional this game played out for you team?

NATE OATS: Yeah, we let our emotions get the best of us, myself included, with the T that didn’t help, and then Pringle got the T. We said at halftime, like, we’re not giving away any more free points. So you got to be emotionally invested in the game without doing things that cost you points and stuff. That way we were good, I thought our bench was great. We went a little over the line a couple times, but as far as the blue collar stuff, like, we chart blue collar stuff both ways. This game, we had 115 and we had them with, like, 95, so we had 20 more than them. This is almost a season high for us with 115 blue collar points. And you kind of look, like, Aaron Estrada rebounded it great. He ended up leading us. He was diving on the floor for loose balls. He made a bunch of tough plays.

But Sears was over 20, Nick Pringle was over 20. We had multiple guys in there putting their nose in and making tough plays. Sears has a double double. Sears wasn’t going to lose. He wasn’t letting us lose tonight. A lot of that was how blue collar and tough. You know, he was great on defense. I thought it was his best defensive game. So we kind of get the — we lead the country in scoring, we play fast, our offense has been No. 1 in the country for a large part of the year, but we really try to build the program on toughness, blue collar, and it hasn’t been what we would like to see all the year. It was there tonight. Without it, we don’t win tonight.

Q. In your opener, you mentioned the 37 free throws. Do you think that was more of a matter of you guys being too physical at times or maybe some whistles that you didn’t think were fouls?

NATE OATS: Probably a little of both. Look, to be honest with you, we fouled two three-point shooters, that gave ’em six. I looked at them, we fouled ’em, those are correct calls. So we had two T’s, that’s another four, so take 10 off and all of a sudden it’s 37 or 27-22 and it’s not nearly as big a discrepancy. So we’ve got to do a better job not fouling jump shooters, Sears fouled a jump shooter, you know, they got eight free throws off jump shooters and four off T’s, like, don’t foul jump shooters, don’t do stupid things to get T’s and, you know, take those 12 away and it’s pretty even. So, they were physical, we were physical, if it had been 25-22 nobody would be talking about it, we got to do a better job not putting them to the line on plays that we shouldn’t be putting them on the line, like three-point shots and jumpers.

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