Oats Wants to See 'Sense of Urgency' From Tide MBB

Alabama men's basketball head coach Nate Oats was visibly frustrated after Alabama dropped its fifth game of conference play and eighth game of the season in Tuesday night's 98-88 loss to the Georgia Bulldogs on the road. While the Crimson Tide may not be the youngest team in the SEC, Alabama returned just 26.3% of its scoring from last season (due to the departures of Mark Sears, Grant Nelson, Chris Youngblood, and Clifford Omoruyi to the NBA last June and Mouhamed Dioubate, Derrion Reid, and Jarin Stevenson to the transfer portal), with less than half of its minutes (47%) going to upperclassmen this season.

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Despite the lack of experience to start the season, the Tide has won 20 or more games for the fifth time in seven seasons under Oats, led by sophomore guard Labaron Philon, who has emerged as a potential All-American and lottery pick in the NBA draft. Despite the success of young players such as Philon, Amari Allen, and Aiden Sherrell, among others, Oats still thinks his roster has some "growing up to do" before they realize that nothing comes easy in the SEC with just one game left in the regular season.

"We're fighting for seeding in the SEC tournament, seeding in the NCAA tournament," Oats said after Tuesday's loss."We've got some young guys who have no idea what it takes to win at this level, particularly on the road."

The frustration stems from Tuesday night being Alabama's third loss of the season following a major win. After defeating No. 5 St. John's on the road, Alabama lost to No. 2 Purdue at home. After defeating No. 8 Illinois in Chicago, the Tide lost to No. 12 Gonzaga in the Players Era Festival in Las Vegas. After defeating No. 22 Tennessee last Saturday, Alabama lost to Georgia on Tuesday night.

"This was our last chance to get a quality road win, and we failed it. This was our third time to have a great road win and follow it up with a win," Oats continued. "Beat Illinois in Chicago, lose to Gonzaga. Beat St. John's, we lose to Purdue. We beat Tennessee, and now we lose here.

"We've got to get some maturity about us. Our guys got to understand nothing is easy in this league. There's not a road game where anybody is going to hand it to you, and I just didn't do a good enough job getting these guys mentally ready to play tonight."

The young nature of this year's roster has led to ups and downs throughout the season, but Alabama is going to need its freshmen and sophomores who play significant minutes (Philon, Allen, Sherrell, London Jemison) to shake off what happened in the last game and prepare for the next one.

"I told the guys, too, we had a tough road win Saturday. It's Tuesday; we're off Sunday, practiced super light Monday; it's Tuesday," Oats said. "It's not like the NBA, where these guys have to get a tough road win on Monday and turn around and play Tuesday. We played Saturday.

"In the SEC tournament, it's going to be Friday, Saturday, Sunday if you want to win it, which we've done twice. So, if you can't turn around from a tough, mentally, physically exhausting game on Saturday, and have yourself mentally ready to go on Tuesday, we got a lot of growing up to do."

During Tuesday's loss, it was evident that graduate guard Latrell Wrightsell Jr. understood what needed to be done as a leader, with Wrightsell getting his teammates juiced up on the floor, but Oats wants to see more urgency from other vets and leaders on the team.

"It's his last year in college basketball, he sees it. We're the only team in the country to play in a Final Four and Elite Eight the last two years, and he's been a part of both of them," said Oats. "He knows what it takes to win in March, and that wasn't it, and he knows it.

"We need somebody like him, and he's doing it, and probably somebody else, and some of our other leaders, and better players to have the sense of urgency that he has, because he's got a sense of urgency right now."

Alabama's regular-season finale will come inside Coleman Coliseum on Saturday, March 7, against the Auburn Tigers. Tip-off is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. CT.

Wyatt Fulton is the Tide 100.9 DME and Brand Manager, primarily covering Alabama Crimson Tide football and men's basketball. For more Crimson Tide coverage, follow Wyatt on X (Formerly known as Twitter) at @FultonW_.