Nate Oats Contract Extension Signals That Alabama Isn't Messing Around in Basketball

All Things CW explores the strong message Greg Byrne is sending the sports world, looks at which team is favored to win the SEC Tournament and why, and points out the biggest story you may have missed this week

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — There's a tale, probably a tall one, about Paul W. "Bear" Bryant's decision to leave Kentucky after the 1953 football season for Texas A&M. 

The story goes that when basketball coach Adolph Rupp was presented a Cadillac by the school at a banquet, Bryant was given a cigarette lighter. 

Most believe that the true origins of the tale are from Bryant joking around in a way to play up the basketball program, playing it up like a fish story, only the reporter didn't know it when writing an Associated Press article. 

However, Bryant did leave Lexington with nine years remaining on his contract, and Rupp was still the coach after the basketball team didn't play any games in 1952-53 due to a gambling scandal.

The point is that for years the story has helped feed the belief that it's nearly impossible for a college to be considered both a football and basketball school, or be a national power in both sports simultaneously.

Alabama is about to try and disprove that notion. 

With Greg Byrne's announcement on Thursday that Alabama had reached a contract extension with men's basketball coach Nate Oats through 2027, it sent numerous strong messages that will be felt for years to come. 

Alabama isn't messing around. 

The Crimson Tide just won another national championship in football. 

It recently completed another Bryant-Denny Stadium renovation and has plans for another upgrade in a few years. By doing so, Byrne is aiming to make it a year-around destination, not just during football season, although no one's quote realized it yet due to the pandemic. 

And now the athletic director just locked down the hottest name in college basketball coaching. 

Before even his second season at Alabama wrapped up, Oats got three more years to his deal, putting him under contract through 2027, and he's moved up into the upper half of SEC coaches in salary.

Here are some other aspects of that message:

1] Alabama is all in

To say that Byrne is confident in the program's hard-hat direction would be a huge understatement, but this only reinforced the school's commitment to basketball.

The Crimson Tide is No. 8 in the latest AP Top 25. KenPom (Pomeroy College Basketball Ratings) has it at No. 7, just behind four Big Ten teams that are about to start knocking each other off (meaning yes, Alabama has the potential to earn a No. 1 seed in the 2021 NCAA Tournament).

Meanwhile, since Mark Gottfried departed in 2008-09, only two Alabama teams had been able to crack the rankings at all, and none finished in the top 25. 

The highest the Crimson Tide has ever finished in an Associated Press poll was No. 5 in 1955-56, which BamaCentral just profiled with this week's Throwback Thursday on Johnny Dee.  

Alabama is about to snap a 15-year streak of not finishing with a ranked team. 

It's not going back to that. 

2] Recruiting

The timing of the extension was interesting because it came during the pandemic, but also before the postseason and the coaching carrousel started to really spin.

Byrne got his guy in 2019, and with Oats now having a buyout of more than $10 million over the next two years he probably isn't going anywhere for a while. That kind of contract clause will discourage a lot a lot of potential suitors, and coaching stability can go a really long way in recruiting. 

The guess here is that Byrne might have learned a little from Nick Saban. Whenever the coach makes a major decision he always has recruiting in the back of his mind. 

3] Byrne can use this to raise funds to renovate Coleman Coliseum 

Upgrading the arena is still expected to be the meat of phase II of the Crimson Standard initiative, although things have obviously slowed due to the pandemic. 

"We got through phase one, and our initial early plans for phase two we badly want that to happen," we reported Byrne as saying last week. "This year has been a challenge. We had a $75 million revenue shortfall."

Alabama athletics hasn't cut any sports. Hasn't laid anyone off. There's hasn't even been any furloughs.  

Nevertheless, there are two thoughts moving forward:

• Byrne's pitch to potential donors just got a lot stronger. It'll be something like, "We made the commitment, now we need you to do so too." 

• Does anyone really think Oats would have agreed to the extension if he didn't believe that Alabama wasn't going to follow through on a new/renovated arena?

4] Alabama might have gotten a bargain

If you believe that Oats is one best coaches in college basketball, and between Buffalo and Alabama there's now a lot of evidence in support, the extension was a steal. Oats' new deal will run through March 14, 2027 and his salary and talent fee will increase to $3.225 million annually. 

His previous contract was for $2.462 million a year through the 2023-24 season. 

In comparison, here are the top 10 highest-paid coaches in college basketball last season, per USA Today:

1. John Calipari, Kentucky: $8,158,000
2. Mike Krzyzewski, Duke: $7,256,924
3. Mick Cronin, UCLA: $5,500,000, including a $2 million signing bonus
4. Rick Barnes, Tennessee: $4,700,000
5. Chris Beard, Texas Tech: $4,430,000
6. Jay Wright, Villanova: $4,410,304
7. Tom Izzo, Michigan State: $4,191,070
8. Roy Williams, North Carolina: $4,102,409
9. Chris Mack, Louisville: $4,067,494
10. Bill Self, Kansas: $3,985,857

Oats is only 46 years old. 

5] Alabama is now a basketball school, too

It's hard to see when attendance is limited, campus is quiet and the postseason was canceled last year. 

However, no one doubts that the culture has changed. 

Oats has obviously been a good fit at Alabama and the program is beginning to really thrive. Even though this year's team has been slowed by injuries, it's still enjoyed the kind of wins that Crimson Tide fans have been dreaming of for decades. 

Said Oats the other day: "We're probably exceeding expectations at 12-1 but I'm a little irritated we're not 13-0. We should've won that one."

Yep, it's a basketball school now. 

ICYMI ➡️ Listen to head coach @nate_oats interview with the @notthefakeSVP during last night's @SportsCenter #RollTide | #BlueCollarBasketball pic.twitter.com/aDIlAz4yMx

— Alabama Men’s Basketball (@AlabamaMBB) February 16, 2021

Alabama Can Still Play the Disrespect Card

Barring an epic collapse it's just a matter of time until Alabama basketball locks up the No. 1 seeding for the upcoming SEC Tournament, set for March 10-14 in Nashville.

But that doesn't mean the Crimson Tide will be favored to win the tournament. According to SportsBetting.com, Tennessee is getting slightly better odds.

Tennessee 3/2
Alabama 3/1
LSU 4/1
Missouri 5/1
Florida 6/1
Arkansas 12/1
Mississippi 25/1
Kentucky 35/1
Mississippi State 60/1
South Carolina 125/1
Georgia 200/1
Texas A&M 300/1
Vanderbilt 500/1

The guess here is that Alabama's injury issues are the driving force in it not being the favorite, especially since there's the potential to play day, after day, after day, which can be especially problematic for a beat-up team.

(Consequently, the Texas A&M game being postponed may have been exactly what Alabama needed).

Keep in mind, though, that Kentucky started season as the 3/2 favorite to win the SEC Tournament. The Wildcats are now 35/1 and primed for a possible quick exit that could end their season.

The Biggest Story You Probably Ignored

Kudos to the NCAA for releasing results from its Student-Athlete Well-Being Study, which examined the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the physical and mental well-being of college athletes.

Close to 25,000 athletes took the survey, representing all conferences across all divisions.

Not surprisingly, it found elevated rates of anxiety, hopelessness, mental exhaustion and feelings of depression across the board.

Some of the specifics included:

• Almost half of the Division I athletes who answered the survey had to isolate or be quarantined due to COVID-19 (44 percent) while Division II and Division III were at 43 percent and 27 percent respectively.

• A sizable amount of athletes (9 percent) reported that someone close to them was hospitalized or had died due to the coronavirus.

• Nearly half of senior athletes had lost internships or jobs because of COVID-19, and 18 percent of males and 12 percent of females expected to delay their graduations. Additionally, 62 percent of seniors felt the pandemic negatively impacted their career planning.

The NCAA found that in most cases, the rates of reporting their mental-health concerns in the last month are 1.5-2 times higher than in NCAA pre-pandemic studies.

Mental health is something that few athletes used to talk about out, so bringing it out more into the open can only help, and encourage others to get help when needed.

We're going to be learning more about COVID-19 over time, including possible long-term effects. For example, the New York Times reported that of the 138 Vanderbilt athletes who tested positive, six developed the heart condition myocarditis. It's one of the reasons why the women's basketball season was discontinued.

Ninety-four percent of Division I respondents reported being tested, with 14 percent having tested positive for the virus at some point.

On the positive side, athletes reported fewer sleep difficulties and lower levels of loneliness, loss, anger and sadness in the fall compared to the beginning of the pandemic.

Maybe someday someone will do another study among athletes from the 300 NCAA and NAIA teams that have been eliminated because of budget cuts or school closures amid the pandemic, and compare the results. 

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In the wake of the San Diego Padres and shortstop Fernando Tatis Jr. agreeing to a 14-year, $340 million contract extension, this SI cover from 1987 stands out even more:

Christopher Walsh's notes column All Things CW appears weekly and will soon be part of BamaCentral+