What Nick Saban said to Alabama basketball team before Texas A&M game

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – Before Alabama played host to Texas A&M on Saturday, former head football coach Nick Saban spoke to the Crimson Tide’s men’s basketball team on Friday.

It wasn’t the first time Saban has addressed Nate Oats’ team, and it’s not likely to be the last, but the fifth-year head basketball coach discussed why he brought Saban in this time.

“He is, to me, maybe the best team coach of any team sport in modern college sports history, and he’s right here,” Oats said after the game. “I talked to him shortly after he retired, he told me when he was going to come back to town and I asked him if he wouldn’t mind speaking to the team when he came back to town. 

“So this was in the window. We kind of had a week off between games, and I thought it’d be good for our guys to hear from a respected coach like him on what took to win. He was great. He churned out NFL players. He’s great. He said, ‘I don’t know much about basketball, but here’s what I can apply from football.’ I thought he was really good.

“He’s obviously won a ton of games.”

No. 15 Alabama entered Saturday’s game against Texas A&M with a half-game lead in the SEC standings. After a convincing 100-75 win over the Aggies, the Crimson Tide maintained the spot atop the conference and improved to 18-7 (10-2 SEC) on the season with six games left prior to the SEC Tournament. It marked Alabama’s eighth 100-point game of the year.

Five different Tide players finished in double figures, with Mark Sears leading the way with 23 points – his eighth straight 20-point game and 16th of the season. Fellow guards Rylan Griffen (17 points) and Latrell Wrightsell (16) weren’t far behind the SEC’s leading scorer and each discussed Saban’s message to the team before its matchup with the Aggies.

Griffen: “He’s had a bunch of successful teams, so he told us what he tells those teams. He just said he’s coached a lot of pros – different sports but same idea. So he just said, like, ‘What do you want to do to get to where you want to go?’ When he speaks, you just take everything in because he’s a legend, a living legend. So you just take everything he says in and apply it to your own personal life. 

“He talked about building better habits, being disciplined and stuff like that. The same stuff he’s always really talked about, but it’s just whenever it’s in front of your face, you take it in more and you take it a lot more seriously. Very appreciative that he came, and I was glad I was able to see him speak in front of my face.”

Sears: “He talked about being a beast. Everybody wants to win, but nobody really wants to do what it takes to win. That’s something that I really looked for and took from him.”

Wrightsell: “He gave us a Kobe story. Kobe came and spoke to the team about a year ago, two years ago before he passed away, and he just gave us a story that stuck with us, all of us, basically. Being a beast. What Rylan said, too. How do you want to get there? How do you want to do it? Everybody does something, but they don’t know what it takes to actually be one of the greats. And for him to give us that story was a blessing for us, and then also to have him come speak, we just take it and just run with that.”

Some familiar faces in the crowd.

First row: Miss Terry, Nick Saban
Second row: Antoine Pettway, Noah Clowney, Noah Gurley
Third row: Herb Jones pic.twitter.com/ZDtA8rRwYG

— Charlie Potter (@Charlie_Potter) February 17, 2024

Saturday was Saban’s first public appearance in Tuscaloosa since he retired as the Alabama head coach on Jan. 10. Saban sat close to the Crimson Tide bench, beside his wife, Terry, and in front of several former UA basketball players, including Herb Jones and Noah Clowney.

Saban is set to serve as an adviser for the Tide athletic department in retirement and played a role in the hiring of new coach Kalen DeBoer. With an office at Bryant-Denny Stadium, he will also likely hear from Oats as he continues to guide the men’s basketball program.

“I’ve tried to learn as much as I can from him,” Oats said. “I was fortunate that I was able to spend five football seasons with him here and learned a little bit. Shoot, if he’s around here, I’m going to keep picking his brain and see if he will keep talking to our team as the years go on.”

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