Ole Miss loss served as 'wake-up call' for Alabama, Nate Oats says

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – No. 4 Alabama lost to No. 21 Ole Miss on Tuesday, and after the 74-64 defeat, its first since November, head coach Nate Oats called his team’s effort “disgusting.”

After shouldering most of the blame, Oats pointed to the Crimson Tide’s veteran players after a less-than-inspiring showing on Alabama’s home floor. With so much experience, the coach felt a performance like Tuesday night shouldn’t happen, especially in Tuscaloosa.

Oats had hoped his team didn’t need a dud of a game to get its attention, but it occurring just four games into SEC play could be beneficial as Alabama treads deeper into its schedule.

“I would hope with a more veteran team you don’t need on, but sometimes you need a wake-up call,” Oats said on Friday. “And if that gave us what we needed, then that’s great. Sometimes you need a little adversity to get where you’re trying to get.”

Oats went on to reference former Crimson Tide head football coach Nick Saban, who won six national championships in his 17-year tenure at Alabama but only two were undefeated.

He brought that up to his team while turning the page from Ole Miss to No. 8 Kentucky.

“We’ve got the luxury of watching maybe the greatest that’s ever done it here in Coach Saban,” Oats said. “Usually, his championship teams lost one early, whether it’s September or October, and he got them pretty focused and they didn’t lose much after that.”

The loss to Ole Miss was Alabama’s first to a conference opponent but third of the season. The Tide also lost at Purdue and against Oregon in Las Vegas. After both defeats, UA bounced back the following game to upend ranked opponents (Illinois and North Carolina).

Oats is hopeful that the disappointing home loss to the Rebels can provide the same spark.

“I think it did give us a wake-up call,” Oats said. “I think we maybe overlooked Ole Miss a little bit, which I don’t how is that possible. They’re 3-0 and they’ve beaten good teams. Maybe just the history with some of these guys that have been here. We haven’t lost to Ole Miss since we’ve been until then. So I don’t know if they thought that’s why.

“I just told them if you overlook anybody in this league, you’re gonna take an L. It looked on our offensive end like we weren’t ready to play basketball. The turnover, we didn’t come ready to go Tuesday, and Ole Miss is much too good of a team with a lot of pride and they came in and took advantage of the fact we weren’t ready to go.”

Alabama (14-3, 3-1 SEC) did not practice on Wednesday but returned to the court on Thursday – “We got after it pretty good,” Oats said. The Tide addressed some of the issues against Ole Miss, which were too many turnovers and not enough offensive rebounds.

Alabama practiced again on Friday, which strictly focused on Kentucky, before it departed for Lexington. How did the Tide look coming off the loss? Oats shared his observations.

“The intensity and the level of focus, I thought, yesterday in practice, if we’d have had that, it would have looked a lot different on Tuesday night,” Oats said. “I think that was the biggest deal is we didn’t have an intensity and a focus that a game in the SEC demands, and that’s on me to make sure that happens. 

“I told them on my end, I’ll make dang sure that if I’ve got anything to do with it, it’s not gonna happen again.”

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