First-year Alabama basketball coach Nate Oats wasn’t planning on talking this much about effort entering the SEC Tournament. He figured the Crimson Tide would be a part of an entirely different discussion heading into March. Nevertheless, here he is.
Alabama (16-15, 8-10 in the SEC) is the No. 9 seed in this week’s conference tournament and will play No. 8 seed Tennessee (17-14, 9-9) on Thursday at noon CT. If the Crimson Tide can get past that game it earns a date with No. 1 seed Kentucky (25-6, 15-3) on Friday. Two more additional wins would secure the SEC Tournament title as well as an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. Following a disappointing end to its season, that’s Alabama’s only hope of making the Big Dance.
Barring a bit of Music City magic this week, Oats and Alabama find themselves in a self-evaluation mode. The Crimson Tide is coming off of back-to-back defeats to Vanderbilt and Missouri. Both were tough to swallow.
Oats chalked up Alabama’s home loss to last-place Vanderbilt to a lack of effort from his players. The most recent defeat to Missouri centered around a lack of offense as a Crimson Tide team that ranks in the top 5 in scoring recorded just 50 points on 14 made field goals.
“To be honest with you, I thought the effort at Missouri was much better than the effort against Vanderbilt the game before for 30 minutes,” Oats said during the SEC Teleconference on Monday. “We didn’t have the intestinal fortitude and the grit and determination to keep doing it when the offense was playing as bad as it was.”
Add grit and determination to the things Oats probably wishes he didn’t have to deal with as his team faces must-win matchups in March.
To be fair, Alabama put up a spirited effort early against Missouri. The Crimson Tide led the game 37-34 with 10:09 remaining and was holding the Commodores to less than one point per possession. However, as Alabama went 3 of 11 from the floor in the final 10 minutes, its defense collapsed, allowing Vanderbilt to make 10 of its last 13 shots.
“We just kind of quit,” Oats said.
While a four-game run in Nashville, Tenn., this week would solve Alabama’s short-term problems, Oats also has an eye on some of the long-term issues that might be stirring in the program. Chief among those are persistence and an ability to overcome adversity.
“I told our guys, that’s what we’re looking for,” Oats said. "Mistakes are going to be made, shots are going to be missed. Not everybody’s going to have their best offensive game every night out, but we need to give an effort every night out.
“Moving forward, we need everybody in this program to understand what kind of effort you’ve got to give. If certain guys aren’t capable of giving what we need to win games, then there may not be a spot for them.”
Oats didn’t speak directly about future plans Monday but did hint at a few potential changes when asked about Arkansas guard Mason Jones, who dropped 30 points on Alabama last month. Jones, who leads the SEC averaging 22 points per game, came to the Razorbacks last season after spending a year at Connors State College in Oklahoma.
This offseason Alabama brought in junior college forward James Rojas, who suffered a season-ending ACL injury in the fall. By the sound of things, the Crimson Tide might again test the JUCO waters in the near future. Alabama has already offered 6-foot-6, 185-pound shooting guard Keon Ellis from Florida Southwestern State.
“There are different ways to do it in this league,” Oats said. “There's some programs that are getting a lot of 5-star kids right out of high school, winning big and doing it that way… We’ve got to go find players every which way possible, whether it's JUCOs, transfers, high school kids. We're looking that way.”
First, though, Oats and Alabama are focused on finishing. That begins Thursday against Tennessee, a team that beat the Crimson Tide, 69-68, in Tuscaloosa, Ala., last month.
“I think if we can have three really good days of practice going into this and get our guys confidence, I think we have a pretty good shot,” Oats said.
At the very least, the head coach is hoping for a pretty good effort and a little more guts.
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Andrew Bone, of BamaInsider.com, is a real estate broker in the state of Alabama.
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