TUSCALOOSA — It was deja vu for No. 2 Alabama basketball in a home matchup on College GameDay. The Crimson Tide fell 94-85 to No. 1 Auburn in the first-ever matchup between two SEC teams ranked No. 1 and No. 2 in the country.
ESPN’s traveling show College GameDay was on hand for the Tide’s marquee matchup. From 9-11 a.m. Saturday morning, fans inside Coleman Coliseum watched the cast discuss the world of college hoops and preview a massive in-state matchup featuring the Tide and Tigers.
The show visited Alabama for the first time last season ahead of its game against Tennessee on March 2. Alabama fell 81-74 to the Volunteers and proceeded to lose two of its final three games in the regular season, including a 105-87 drubbing at the hands of Florida, and its first game in the 2024 SEC Tournament.
That response became a reference point Saturday for coach Nate Oats. He discussed the Tennessee loss as a pivotal moment in his message to the team after the Tide once again failed to pick up a win in the featured college basketball game of the day at another crucial juncture of its conference schedule.
“I told our guys afterward when we got beat at home by Tennessee last year on GameDay, I thought we had a major letdown in leadership on the team,” Oats said. “Didn’t rally us enough to go on the road and play well at Florida We got trounced pretty good on the road.
“We’ve better leadership this year. “We’re not in full control of our own destiny to win the league outright. We are in full control of our destiny to at least get a tie with the league moving forward because we do have Auburn at their place. So, we’ll see what type of maturity and leadership we have by how we come in on Monday.”
Lackluster shooting on all three levels and failure to capitalize after runs doomed Alabama against its rival and the nation's No. 1 program. There’s little time to dwell, however, as Alabama has six more games, all against ranked opponents to finish the season — GameDay detailed that schedule Oats during Saturday morning’s show.
Some fans might think College GameDay’s presence is becoming a curse for Alabama. But it’s also a testament to what Oats has built in his tenure. Now Oats his the difficult task of helping pick his team up off the matt. The Tide had a chance to prove it was the No. 1 team in the country, the best team in the best league in college basketball and do it while overcoming your archrival.
That’s a tough pill to swallow, but Oats intends to use it as a teaching moment.
“This is real-life stuff,” Oats said. “Shots aren’t dropping. Something happens in real life. Are you a frontrunner where you’ve only got the right attitude when stuff’s going well? Or do you got enough character and enough intestinal fortitude to play just as hard when stuff’s going well or are you giving everything you got to your job when stuff’s not going well. These are life lessons that we gotta learn.”
Oats has challenged his veteran players to lead at a few intervals this season. Alabama has responded well to losses thus far, going on the road and beating Kentucky after its loss to then-No. 21 Ole Miss, beating then-No. 20 North Carolina on the road after a loss to Oregon and defeating then-No. 25 Illinois by double-digits after a loss to Purdue.
Alabama didn’t get the result it wanted in a frustrating performance against its bitter rival. Now the Tide has reached a critical moment in its season. Its second game against Auburn will be an even more difficult challenge than Saturday’s version and cap off the most difficult stretch of games of any team in the country.
The team still has on-court kinks to work out. Growing in the areas that caused Alabama to drop Saturday’s game and avoiding the same long-term outcome a College GameDay loss had last year will be a test of Oats’ tactics, his player’s ability, and most importantly, the team’s mental toughness.
“Hopefully we’re mature enough and have enough leadership on this team that the adversity we just faced in the game tonight makes us a better team three weeks from now, four weeks from now,” Oats said. Five, six, seven weeks from now we’re better for this loss.”
