Nate Oats Evaluates the Pros and Cons of Facing a Former Alabama Player

The Crimson Tide will reunite with a familiar forward in South Carolina's Nick Pringle, who was "great" for Alabama during last season's Final Four run.

Mar 28, 2024; Los Angeles, CA, USA; Alabama Crimson Tide forward Nick Pringle (23) shoots against North Carolina Tar Heels forward Armando Bacot (5) in the second half in the semifinals of the West Regional of the 2024 NCAA Tournament at Crypto.com Arena. Mandatory Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images / Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images

TUSCALOOSA, Ala.— Alabama men's basketball has already faced two players this season who were a part of the Crimson Tide's Final Four run from last season.

Wake Forest's Davin Cosby Jr. and Oklahoma's Mohamed Wague played very few minutes in head coach Nate Oats' system, which was likely a part of the reason why they transferred out of Tuscaloosa. However, the same cannot be said for former Alabama and current South Carolina forward Nick Pringle, who played over 18 minutes per game last season.

Nevertheless, it appeared as though Pringle understandably wanted a bigger role, and he certainly has one for the Gamecocks as he's averaging 10.4 points and 6.4 rebounds in 24.5 minutes per game.

"He was great for us in the Final Four run. He had really great games for us here over his two years here," Oats said during Tuesday's press conference. "It'll be good to see him. He's playing well for them as the second-leading scorer in the front court."

Facing your former team could be beneficial for a player and Pringle has already likely opened up about defending Alabama's play style to his South Carolina teammates. But of course, the Crimson Tide isn't the exact same team as last season.

"Nick's a smart player, he's going to know our play calls," Oats said. "We've got some new stuff, but probably 80 percent of it is what we were doing last year...I'm sure he's going to alert them to it and they're going to be a little more prepared than some other teams may be. But we've got new personnel. We play so much in the flow anyway––We're not calling a set unless there's a dead ball typically. It does present a few challenges.

"I've talked to our team and said 'I don't care whether the other team knows what we're going to run, we have to run it correctly.' So, if they know what we're doing, that's great. We know how to attack every different type of coverage, so if they're going to cover one way we're gonna attack it, and the guys have got to make the right read."

Of course, while Pringle may know Alabama's system, Oats and the returning members of the Crimson Tide from last season's team are aware of his strengths and weaknesses as well.

"The other way of it is, our guys know him, and should know how to guard him better than just a random guy that they've never seen before," Oats said. "So, we've got that advantage a little bit. [Alabama center] Cliff [Omoruyi] wasn't here last year, but some of our guys were––[forward Mouhamed] Dioubate in the front court was here, [forward] Jarin [Stevenson] was here, [forward] Grant [Nelson] was here.

"Whoever ends up being on him will have a little bit of a better idea of how to guard him hopefully more than just playing some random guy. But again we didn't post him a ton last year, so we're gonna have to guard a lot more in the post in this game than what we probably did in practice last year."

Nate Oats and Alabama will head to Nick Pringle's home base in South Carolina on Wednesday at 6 p.m. CT on SEC Network.

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