Alabama basketball coach Nate Oats speaks on open week, lineup adjustments
Reading time: 4 minutes
With a week between games, Alabama men’s basketball coach Nate Oats stopped by the Harbert Center in Birmingham for the weekly Birmingham Tip-Off Club meeting.
The Crimson Tide is coming off a perfect week, winning two road games to improve to 13-5 overall + 3-2 in SEC play. The team gets a few days off before returning to Coleman Coliseum this weekend to host Tennessee.
Keep reading to see what Oats spoke about Monday afternoon + what comes next for the Crimson Tide.
‘We’re competing for the league’
Not even three weeks into January and every SEC team has at least one conference loss already. That means the Crimson Tide is just a game back of the top of the standings which currently belongs to Florida and Texas A&M.
The Tide’s 3-2 mark is its worst start to conference play since 2022 when the team starting 2-3. Alabama finished 9-9 in the SEC that season, its second worst record since Oats took over.
But Alabama’s standard has been set much higher under Oats. With two regular season conference titles and two conference tournament championships under their belt, the Tide expects to be at the top.
“I’m not going to consider it a successful season if we don’t win the league. That’s where we’ve got this program to. We’re competing for the league. We’re going to see how good we are really in the next two weeks.”
Nate Oats
Alabama will plays its next two games at home before taking on Florida and Texas A&M in a four-day span to start February. The next couple of weeks could make the difference in becoming the favorites to win the league or having to play from the bottom half of the conference standings.
For Oats, there’s just one option.
“Success in SEC play to me is winning the league. We’ve won it more than anyone else since we’ve been there. How do we get there? I think we have to stop focusing as a team on winning the league and focus on what we have to do to get better today.”
Nate Oats
Alabama’s rest week
Oats said this week will be about getting healthy as several players on the roster have already had to miss some time this year due to injuries.
Just last week, Alabama played a game with just eight scholarship players available.
Latrell Wrightsell Jr. and Keitenn Bristow have already missed extended period of time as well as Davion Hannah and Jalil Bethea. Taylor Bol Bowen also hurt his hand during the win over Oklahoma.
In the meantime, the players available for Oats have been making the most of their minutes, especially Aiden Sherrell. The big man has recorded back-to-back 20-point games for the first time in his career.
But some of the Tide’s struggles come when Sherrell heads to the bench.
Noah Williamson has been getting some backup center minutes but the former Patriot League Player of the Year has struggled with the move to Tuscaloosa. Oats is still hoping for more from the Bucknell transfer.
“Noah has shown he can do it. That Kentucky game, I thought he was great. We have to get that version of Noah back more often. We have to find lineups maybe when the other team is a little smaller to get Aiden out, rest him.”
Nate Oats
Sherrell played a season-high 31 minutes in the win over Oklahoma. The Crimson Tide is 6-2 when he plays at least 24 minutes.
“He’s having a really good year, we need him out there frequently… He’s gradually getting in better shape, we’re learning how to get him out around timeouts better and get him rested a little more.”
Nate Oats
The Tide will be back in action Saturday night against the Volunteers. The game is scheduled to tip off at 7:30PM and will air on ESPN.
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