Nate Oats Addresses "Leadership Void" Ahead of LSU, SEC Tournament

With just one game left of the regular season for Alabama basketball, Oats noted that his team is running out of time to solve its leadership issues.

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — After Alabama basketball's rough 87-71 loss to Texas A&M at home on Wednesday night, the Crimson Tide's leadership came under fire by a plethora of critics, both fans and outsiders alike.

Leadership and identity have both been key complaints filed against Alabama this season. While the Crimson Tide has shown that it can not only compete but also beat top-tier teams in college basketball this season, it has also displayed a terribly low floor when it comes to approaching less-than-stellar competition.

Oats was the latest critic of Alabama's leadership on Wednesday night after the game, calling out the team's leaders and their lackluster effort. He also, however, threw himself under the bus regarding the situation.

"I’ve gotta do a better job building leaders, helping them to become leaders, and that’s where I’ve somewhat failed this team a little bit, to be honest with you," Oats said. "Because we don’t have as good of internal leadership as we’ve had in the past and we need to be, to be honest with you.” 

On Saturday, Alabama basketball will play its final regular-season game, a road test at LSU (11 a.m. CT, CBS). A win would mean that the Crimson Tide would be a 5-seed in next week's SEC Tournament. However, a loss combined with several other games falling against its favor could put Alabama as low as an 8-seed.

On Friday, Oats said that his team's leadership had responded well after the loss, but that was to be expected following such a disastrous effort in home finale.

"The guys that we've needed to lead have been playing hard in practice and trying to lead," Oats said. "I think there's a leadership void after a loss like that, obviously, so sometimes guys step into that void. We're going to see how that leadership goes. Everybody knew we needed to play hard yesterday in practice. We need to be locked in for shootaround tomorrow, the game tomorrow."

The importance of Saturday's game is not lost on Oats, nor has that seemed to be the case for him in any of the Crimson Tide's games against lower-quality opponents this year. Alabama has remained consistently inconsistent throughout the year, downing highly-ranked opponents like Gonzaga, Houston and Baylor while falling inexplicably to inferior competition like Missouri, Georgia and Texas A&M.

Those losses can mostly be attributed to lack of effort which, in turn, can be attributed to poor leadership within the program.

Freshman center Charles Bediako noted that the message since the loss to the Aggies has been that of not taking these last few games before the NCAA Tournament for granted.

"For us, really, it's just like 'Don't take every game for granted,'" Bediako said. "For this last game coming up against LSU — a good team — we just gotta be better on defense, continue to play together and also attacking and fighting through adversity and just play hard. That's really what it is for this next game."

Regardless of how things play out, Alabama will progress onward to March Madness in back-to-back seasons for the first time since 2005-06. The big question surrounding Alabama is just exactly what team will show up to its region. Will it be the team that has toppled college basketball juggernauts, or the team that displayed abysmal effort?

Oats acknowledged that while there was time earlier in the season to correct the issues of leadership within the program, time has now run out.

"'How long will it continue?' to me is the bigger question because if we're going to make a run in March, the SEC Tournament starts next Thursday," Oats said. "We're less than a week away from that. It's less than a week away and then you've got to have some leadership to make sure guys are ready to play every single game no matter who it is in the tournament that we're playing in.

"Then March Madness, depending on who our seed is and who's at the other seeds, I don't know if these guys'll take — I would hope, and we're gonna do our best as coaches to make sure that no matter who we get matched with in the NCAA Tournament, it's taken as seriously as Gonzaga, Baylor, Houston, Tennessee — these other teams that we've taken very seriously. But the best way that that happens is the internal leadership of the team makes sure that happens and that's what we need to get this thing to."

Gallery: No. 25 Alabama Basketball Falls to Unranked Texas A&M