What Nate Oats said on College GameDay ahead of Alabama-Auburn

Alabama head coach Nate Oats joined College GameDay on Saturday morning, as the preview show made its second-ever stop in Tuscaloosa ahead of a 1 vs. 2 matchup with the top-ranked Auburn Tigers. Oats discussed the historic Iron Bowl of Basketball, which is slated to tip off later today at 3 p.m. CT on ESPN. Here is everything Oats said on College GameDay.

Oats on how Alabama can win a national championship…

“Stop turning the ball over. We’ve got too many turnovers. We’ve gotta stop turning the ball over, and we’ve gotta rebound it a little bit better. And then if our defense can get a little bit better – it’s been great at times. It hasn’t been great for a full 40 minutes yet. If we can get some defensive consistency over 40 minutes and stop turning the ball over and then rebound it a little bit better, we’ve got a chance to win it all.”

Oats on the best advice he’s received from his daughters…

“That’s a good one. Where is Lexi, by the way? She’s been here since before I was here today. She always has a comment about my sportscoats, whether she likes them or don’t. And sometimes when she’s not at the game live, like on the road, I’m like, ‘Well, it didn’t look like that in person.’ The best advice they’ve given me? Shoot, sometimes they just keep you humble.

“The other game when we won – I forget which game it was at, maybe Arkansas – like, ‘Dad, why were we so terrible? Why did we only win by four?’ A lot of coaching advice. ‘Why’d you keep such-and-such in the game? He was terrible tonight.’ I won’t mention any names.”

Oats on how he uses analytics in personnel decisions…

“Latrell Wrightsell would be a perfect example. His effective field goal percentage wasn’t ridiculously high, but his catch-and-shoot rate was really high. His uncontested catch-and-shoots were high. I think over half of his shots at Fullerton were mid-range twos, and that’s gonna drop your percentage really low. So if you just look at field goal percentage or the effective field goal percentage, he wasn’t great. He was solid. 

“But if you look at the shots we’re gonna get him in our offense, he looks a lot better. And then low and behold, he comes here and he’s a 44 percent 3-point shooter and one of the best shooters in the country for us last year and up until he got hurt this year. You’ve gotta kind of look at what they would do in your system. We’ve got an analytics company that helps us do a lot of that stuff. So you can’t look at just what they do in the system they’re in. You’ve gotta look at what they would look like in your system. That’s how we use it in the transfer portal.”

Oats on what he tries to do coming out of under- and side-timeouts…

“I told our staff when we had the bye week, and we tried to take the beginning of that bye week to look at some of these really good teams in the second half, not just the next game. I’m watching one of Auburn’s games, and they stole two buckets in the first eight minutes of the game on underneath out-of-bounds, exploiting what the other team did on an underneath-out. I’m like, we’ve gotta try to make sure we’re doing that.

“So you look at how they guard, and there’s good things and bad things with how teams guard. They can try to turn you over, but then they give something up. We’ve gotta figure out what they give up and try to exploit them on that. Sometimes it’s matchups because of the way that they cross-match, which is scheme-wise, too. But yeah, sometimes a little of both. Sometimes it backfires, you get a pick-six going the other way and then I’m not very happy over there. 

“… It’s Ryan or Adam’s fault when it’s a pick-six, and when it looks good, it was my play, right?”

Oats on how he values what Mouhamed Dioubate does…

“Obviously, we’ve got some educated fans because they understand that playing hard and making blue-collar plays wins basketball games. But even when you get to the analytics, Houston Mallette, who ended up redshirting, has the highest offensive leverage on the team. But the guys who are currently playing, the highest one on the team is Dioubate. Even though he’s not necessarily a great shooter, he’s got the highest offensive leverage on the team.

“And then in certain games, when he’s locked into the scouting report better than others, he’s got very high defensive leverage, too. Analytically, we’re really good when he’s in because he gets offensive rebounds, he gets shooters open, he can create advantages for them. You don’t have to be an elite shooter. Now, we can’t play four guys that aren’t great shooters out there together. But there’s room for… 

“Shoot, Herb Jones is in the building. I saw him when I pulled in. He didn’t shoot very many threes when he was here, and we were really good when he was in the game. We had good shooters all around him to help, though.”

Oats on players having to take open shots for the offense to work…

“Yeah, especially the guys that the expected value on their open shots is high. Like Mark Sears, he can’t turn down open shots because then it ends up being a turnover later in the possession. Him, Holloway, Philon, Youngblood. Those guys have to take open catch-and-shoot threes. And even Dioubate’s been in the gym working. He went 3-for-3 the last game. 

“So if they wanna leave guys open – they did it with Clowney when he was here, and all of a sudden, he starts knocking them down. Jarin Stevenson is almost 40 percent since the end of November. So we’ve got guys that can make shots.”

Oats on the mindset for this Auburn game being it’s the start of a gauntlet…

“Which one of those is a gimme? There’s no easy one. There’s a number in front of every one of them. Listen, obviously, this is a big game. We know that. That’s why all these people are here so early in the morning, why you’re here. But if you win this one and then drop another one, a loss is a loss in the SEC column. You’re trying to win the regular season. 

“We’re gonna be ready to go tonight. We know that. But then we’ve gotta turn this thing around and be ready to go at Missouri. Turn around and be ready to go (vs.) Kentucky. It’s a gauntlet, but you’ve gotta come ready to go. I think that’s why our non-conference schedule has helped so much because we had a lot of good games in there. We had quite a stretch there, as well. Not quite like this, but pretty close. I think our guys are ready for it.”

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