Everything Nate Oats Said on Selection Sunday

Here's what the Alabama coach had to say after securing the Crimson Tide a spot in the NCAA tournament for the second straight year.

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Alabama basketball is headed to back-to-back NCAA tournaments for the first time since 2005-2006. The Crimson Tide is the committee's highest rated 6-seed and is headed out West to play the winner of Tuesday's play-in game between 11-seeds Notre Dame and Rutgers on Friday.

Here's what Alabama head coach Nate Oats had to say to the media on Selection Sunday:

Nate Oats Full Transcript- March 13, 2022, Selection Sunday

Opening Statement

"Listen, we're super excited about playing in the NCAA tournament. I mean that's what these kids grow up dreaming of doing. We made a good run last year, made a Sweet 16. We've lost a few in a row here, but it's a new start. I think our guys' minds are good. We practiced before the Selection Show not really knowing who we'd get or what we'd have, but we'd already given them two days off Friday and Saturday. 

"We got a draw that we've had this before. My last year at Buffalo we drew the play-in game, so we've had to do this before where we didn't know who we're playing till after Tuesday night in Dayton. We've been sent out West before too. The year we upset Arizona we played in Boise. So we've gone out West. We played Arizona State. They had to play the play-in game my last year at Buffalo—they sent us to Tulsa that year, so West a little bit. It makes it a little harder for your prep because you're not just prepping for one team. But in some regards, whoever ends up winning between Rutgers and Notre Dame, they'll play Tuesday night. I think when we played Arizona State they played Tuesday night and had to play Thursday. So this team will have an extra day, but you could tell Arizona State when we played them before was a little more tired because they had to play Tuesday night. So you've got the benefit of not having to play on Tuesday night. 

"Rutgers has some quality wins. They beat Purdue. They beat Iowa, who just won the Big 10 Tournament, Illinois, Wisconsin, who won the regular season in the Big 10. They've had some really good wins. 

"If you look at Notre Dame, they beat Kentucky who is one of the best teams in our league and best teams in the country. So both these teams are more than capable of beating good teams. We've shown we're more than capable of beating good teams. Whoever we end up getting, it'll be a little different style. 

"Notre Dame obviously plays a little more open, takes a lot of threes, a little more offensive-minded. Rutgers a lot more defensive-minded, tough, hard-nosed. They're gonna make it difficult to score on. We've watched them play. Ron Harper's obviously really good for Rutgers.  Notre Dame's got talented players. I haven't gotten to look at any video yet myself studying these. I've seen them both play on TV during the year a little bit here and there, not having any idea we play them. But that's the beauty of the NCAA tournament is you get to play teams you haven't really seen all year and somebody. It's somebody different, not within your own league, where everybody knows each other inside and out. So it'll be good for us to get out of our league.

"We talked to our guys today in practice about really just trying to make things simple. I think if we can take care of the ball, finish at the rim, take care of the ball, make layups and make free throws— things you've been doing since you started playing basketball back in elementary school. I think if we do those three things at a high level, our offense will settle down and be alright. I thought we played hard enough to beat Vanderbilt on the defensive end. Our offense didn't help us out much with the turnovers we had. And then obviously the fouling was a major problem on defense too, but I thought our effort was really good. We need to get that same effort on Friday in the NCAA Tournament. We've just got to be a little smarter, play without fouling, take care of the ball, make layups and make our free throws."

On if this long break between games and heading out West can be a restart for his players

"Hopefully it's gonna reset. I mean, it's a new season. We've talked to our guys before about UCLA. You know, UCLA upset us in the Sweet 16, and they played in this play-in game. It'd be easy for us to sell these guys on the play-in game winner making a run. We've got be aware of whoever wins this game. But UCLA lost four straight going into the NCAA tournament, and then they had to win to the play-in game, Round of 64, Round of 32, Sweet 16 against us, Elite Eight. They won five in a row before they got to the Final Four. 

"So you know they lost four straight going into it. We've lost three straight, and we've proven we're more than capable of playing with anybody. I mean two No. 1 seeds we've beat, you know the No. 1 overall seed Gonzaga. We beat Baylor. If you look at the 2-seeds Auburn and Kentucky, I thought we played them tough. Tennessee had a chance to be a 2-seed, they ended up a 3-seed. We beat Tennessee. We beat Arkansas who's a 4-seed. We've proven we can play with and beat pretty much anybody in the country. So if we get our minds right, and I think we had a good practice, we're good. Get a reset. Tell our guys it's a new season, and I think we'll be alright."

How does he go about getting their minds right?

"That's a good question. If we had answers to all that stuff, we probably would've done it a long time ago. But I think what we're trying to do is build up their confidence with stuff they're good at. We kind of are who we are right now if we can just clean up a few little things. I told them kind of running the stats from practice today, we had some live stuff, if we'd have finished at the rim in the game like we did at practice, if we made free throws in the game like we did at practice, if we took care of the ball. If we took care of any of the three of those things, we'd have won the game. We try to show them where they're doing good, pump them up. Show them that they've done well on the stuff they're struggling with now in the past, they've done really well with it. We've had plenty of games where guys just shot the ball well, finished well, so just let them know they're capable of it. Paint a picture of what the possibilities are.

"I think our guys need to be reminded. And I think people around here need to be reminded that this has been an unbelievable season. I think it's the first time in 16 years, the last time Alabama went back to back NCAA Tournaments was '05-'06. So while we may have had really high expectations winning the SEC last year and set the expectation even higher after you go out to Seattle and beat Gonzaga and beating Houston a week later. You know we had some really good non-conference wins. Let's not forget that we're at a place that's changing the culture of men's basketball, and it's been 16 years since they went back to back NCAA tournaments, and it's been 30 years since they went back to back tournaments with a 6-seed or higher in both NCAA tournaments.

"So this group of guys that was here last year and this year... you know you look at Keon Ellis, Quinerly, Shackelford, Rojas, Juwan Gary, Darius Miles. These guys that played last year and are now heavy in the rotation this year are doing things for Alabama basketball that haven't been done in 30 years. Let's pump up their confidence. Let's let them know the sky's not falling. We've had an unbelievable year. We've got a chance to make a great run to cap the year off really well, and that's what we're trying to do. 

"And I think I think the guys' minds are in good spots. Quinerly's pace in practice, you know his pace in the game was good. He had some unforced turnovers that have got to be better. We had some unfortunate fouls with some of the charges, and a kid that never really fouls out of the game ends up fouling out. And Shackelford's a guy that's never in foul trouble much either and gets in foul trouble. I thought these guys were both ready to play though in the game. So let's let them know they were ready. We just had some unfortunate things happen. We fouled too much, we didn't take care of the ball, we've got to make our free throws. 

"We were in a good spot. Vanderbilt's a good team too. If you look at what Vanderbilt did the next night against Kentucky, it's not like we lost to a bad team. They're play well. Pippin was No. 1 in the country at foul rate. He gets fouled more in the country than anyone else does. We tried to get our guys more disciplined in the fouling, but again it's not like we weren't fouling a guy that hasn't been getting fouled all year."

On his plans for the lineup/rotation moving forward

"I think it's going to somewhat be determined by how practice goes this week, and where the game goes. Sometimes in your mind you've got a way you want to play a rotation you want to get with, and then all of a sudden like you said, we didn't plan on playing Jusaun 14 minutes, but he played well in those minutes. We got in foul trouble, he played well, and we kinda rolled with him a little longer. We were in foul trouble, and we needed some perimeter guys to play more minutes, and he did well. He practiced well today. He's had a great attitude. I think he's a guy that if we need him to come in and play, give us minutes like that he can come in and give us minutes like that.

"It's going to somewhat be determined on who we play with the matchups they have, and who plays well for us, who stays out of foul trouble, who's in foul trouble, some of that stuff.  We've been playing 10 guys in the rotation. I would anticipate all 10 of them getting minutes and being ready to play."

On his team's confidence playing non-conference teams

"This will be the first time we've played a non-SEC team since we played Baylor, so hopefully we can get back to some of the non-conference confidence we had if you will. I think our best wins, Tennessee's obviously a really good,  but I think some of our best wins are our non-conference wins—Gonzaga, Houston, Baylor.

"You get to know each other a lot better in the league. They know us better. The other teams have done a pretty good job guarding us. We get against a team that they're going to play Tuesday night, and then they're going to have a Wednesday/Thursday to prep for us, so they're probably not going to practice full speed either of those days. You've got the day right after and the day right before the game. I think hopefully when we play somebody that hasn't played us before, we'll be a little bit harder to guard and do a little bit better job.

"Obviously both teams are going to present their challenges. Notre Dame will probably stress our defense a little bit more with the way they space the floor and shoot it. Rutgers will make it a lot harder to score on with the way they guard and how tough they are and how physical they are in the Big 10. So whichever team we end up playing will present its own challenges, but I do think us playing a team that hasn't seen us a lot that hasn't played against us at all. We haven't played either of these teams since I've been at Alabama, so hopefully that'll help us out a little bit. I do think we've had some better wins in non-conference games."

What's the message to the guards and how much do they determine the team's success

"I mean, we're gonna go as our guards go. We've kind of gone that way all year. I think the message to those guys is— one we got to take care of the ball. Like, we want to play fast and play attacking, you want to play downhill, but we have to take care of the ball. So take care of the ball, get great shots, and be aggressive. I don't want them thinking about turnovers so bad that they're not aggressive. We have to play aggressive. That's how we play, but we can't have the careless turnovers we've had.

"We've tried to simplify this. We told our guys... we've got this we call get it 'good shot percentage.' Like how many of our possessions did we get a good shot when we got a shot? And it was 92% of the time we either got a free throw, at the rim or a three. Well, the problem is we shot free throws poorly at 58%, finished at the rim at 50%, and we shot threes at 26%, whatever it was against Vandy. We got the shots we wanted, we just didn't convert them. So let's continue to run offense the way we run it. But we've got to take care of the ball, make free throws, make layups, and then I don't think we have to shoot great from three, but we've got to shoot a decent percentage, average percentage. If we do that, our offense is going to be fine. If we play as hard as we did on defense, if we just clean up the fouling, I think we'll be good on that end too. So we don't need major changes from these guys. Let's just lock in and do what we're capable of doing, but let's simplify it a little bit. Let's take care of the ball. Let's make our layups. Let's make our free throws."