Nate Oats Apologizes For Incident With Missouri Player

In his postgame press conference, Oats addressed pushing a Missouri player away during a timeout.

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — The Coleman Coliseum crowd got loud at the under-8 media timeout of the first half during Alabama's 93-75 win over Missouri on Tuesday night.

After the officials signaled for timeout, a scuffle occurred in front of the Alabama bench, with Crimson Tide guard Aaron Estrada and Missouri forward Aidan Shaw in each other's faces. Alabama head coach Nate Oats then placed his hand on Shaw's chest and moved him away from his bench, pointing for him to go back to Missouri's bench. No technical foul was assessed by officials, who were standing mere feet from the action.

Oats opened his postgame press conference by addressing the incident. 

"I've known Coach [Dennis] Gates for a long time. He was a high school coach, one of the best recruiters in the country. I have all the respect in the world for the job he's done as an assistant and a head coach," Oats said. "No disrespect to him or his program. I apologize to both Coach Gates and Aidan Shaw. Aidan seems like a great kid, and it was an unfortunate situation but I apologize to both of them."

During Gates' postgame press conference, he also pointed out the fact that Oats apologized after the game. 

"Nate apologized after the game. I've known Nate since he was a high school coach in Detroit," Gates said.

Gates, however, did insinuate that there should have been some punishment during the game for Oats' actions. 

"I just pose the question, if that was players in a huddle, with a hand on an opponent, what would take place? It would be an automatic technical foul, right?" Gate said. "I thought I saw two referees in the huddle. It wasn't a technical foul. But that's the question I would pose."

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