Alabama coach Nate Oats spoke to reporters after the Crimson Tide’s 93-91 overtime win over No. 1 Auburn on Saturday. Alabama (24-7, 13-5 SEC) locked up the No. 3 seed in the SEC Tournament and will play its first postseason opponent Friday.

Here’s everything Oats said after the game.

“I know the game wasn’t meaningful as far as SEC regular season championship results or any of that. But it looked to me like they were trying to get the win. They brought their best guys They didn’t sit Denver. Broome was obviously playing well. He kinda killed us. 34, and eight. He hit some big shots. We went against them on their senior night, and I think we showed what we’re capable of being moving forward.”

Couldn’t be more proud of the group of guys. Nobody in the country has got anything close to the seven-game stretch we had to close the year. To come up with a win against the No. 1 team on their home floor — it happens to be our archrival to close it out after the adversity we faced. We could have folded. We took a tough loss at Tennesee. Florida game we didn’t look great. Bounce-back, we come in here like we did, and things didn’t go perfect. I mean, shoot, the points off turnovers was 20-10 them. We had 15 turnovers. We’ve got to do a better job on some things.

“But I just kind of challenged these guys, let’s be the best playing team, toughest team, most together no matter what happens. Things won’t be perfect. Let’s just stick together and keep playing hard and I thought that’s what they did.

“Grant obviously had a really good game. He was aggressive early. Mark, they were gonna make sure he didn’t get anything easy. They did a good job on him defensively. He stuck in there. Attitude was great. He played hard for us there on defense. He got seven assists, only one turnover and then when we needed him late, he came through and delivered. Bailed me out because that play design wasn’t all that great, to be honest with you. So, I think the thing that was great about it was that it was in a pretty great player’s hands. So, he delivered for us there late.

“Hopefully, this can get our guys some confidence going into the SEC tournament. We got the bye until Friday, we gotta get our legs back up under us. We gotta get our confidence back and I think this is a good start.”

“Yeah, I thought it was big. I met with them guys earlier in the week after the loss to Florida. Asked how their bodies were. I kind of explained, we’ve got the bye to Friday wrapped up. The only thing still on the books is a No. 3 or No. 4. You guys want to play everybody against Auburn. It was a resounding ‘Yeah. We don’t like those guys. We owe them one. We’re playing. We’re getting the win,’ which is what I wanted to hear, but I wanted them to make that decision. They did. They brought it. I think it was huge. It was definitely not a game Auburn was OK with losing. They put everybody out there. The plan was to do everything they could to get the win.

“So, for our seniors to come in here on the last game of the regular season and win at Auburn, it gives them some confidence. It means a lot for those guys and makes up for a few of those loses we had in that seven-game stretch and no we’ve just got to get everybody, healthy, bodies fresh, ready to go in Nashville.”

“That’s a tough question. I don’t know. You look at some of the wins we have. They give you a lot more credit for road wins. Houston’s gonna be a 1-seed. We beat them on a neutral. Auburn’s gonna be a 1-seed for sure, we beat them on their home floor. So, I think with our quality wins we’ve got we’ll certainly be in the mix. It’s just, do we have too many losses? We lost four of these ones here in the last seven, which wasn’t ideal. But I also don’t think anybody in the country has played a seven-game stretch that we’ve played either. So in the quad battle, we come up with a big win. So we’ll see. If we’re not a 1-seed and we’re a 2-seed, that’s not the worst thing either.”

“I know last year we struggled a little bit. And the other year we had the injuries two years before that. The other years we finished pretty well. We won two SEC tournament championships. So, I think it depends on the group you got, to be honest with you. If you have guys that are still playing for each other, together, want to keep playing for together. I feel like this group is that way.

“We challenge these guys. We had Coach Murphy for softball come speak to our guys last year. He kind of used the term Mudita. We’ve tried to adopt it again. Do we have the most Mudita? Were they playing for each other? Do they want each other to do well? I thought Sears embodied it pretty well tonight. He only had nine points. He’s averaging just about 20. He’s had a bunch of 30-point games here lately, and he just kept playing hard, finding guys for assists. Cliff’s 7 of 7. I’m not sure how many of those buckets were from Sears. He did a really good job.

“So, this group wants to keep playing with each other. They like it. Last year we didn’t finish the regular season or even the SEC tournament well, but we got them together to make a Final Four run. So, I think this group, this group’s better overall. We’re hopefully going to get some confidence in the SEC tournament play better there in Nashville than last year’s group did. But, we found a way to still get it together and make a run. Hopefully we put this group together a week earlier than last year. This groups got it together. We’ve already got a pretty good win here to close the regular season. So I think they’re headed in the right direction."

“He’s an athletic big with the way he moves. When he attacks the rim, he gets banged up a little bit in there. But, I thought getting him downhill early was important. We need him to be aggressive. That transition and-1 he got, hopefully got his confidence going. And I like the fact he went in to dunk the one, missed it, but it didn’t really faze him. He just kept playing. So, I was happy with aggressiveness. We need him playing aggresive. He was one of the best players in the country last year in March when we made a Final Four run. Hopefully, we get Grant Nelson in March back for another March run for us.”

“I told the guys, ‘We’re not going to do anything dumb. Like, we’re tying to win the basketball game on the scoreboard. We don’t need cheap shots. All that does is give the other team free plays. It would have been nice if Chris converted on those two on the F2. But, still, he was no longer available for his team. I just told our guys ‘Don’t do anything dumb. Let’s just be the hardest-playing, toughest, most together team on the floor and the rest will go take care of itself.’ So, we’re trying to win a basketball game. We’re not trying to win anything else.

“So, whatever the cheap plays that they had, we don’t need to do any of that stuff. We don’t need to do anything dumb to get a T and give them free points, and every point was meaningful tonight. It came down to the last possession here over the last 10 seconds really.”

“I mean, the improvements were more from the coaching staff. I was really disappointed with how I personally got our guys through that last 30 seconds against Tennessee. I thought we, you know, we use it. We learn. We talk through all different scenarios both sides of the ball, who we need to have in? Tied games, who do you have in? Up three when they need a 3 It wasn’t perfect, but at least we talked through it, and we had some sets in mind that we wanted. The one we ended up running, tie game late with 14 seconds in overtime, was not necessarily one that we’d been through. But I knew I wante dto get the ball in his hands and we got it there.

“So I thought we did a better job. We still need to be better. I gotta be better for our guys. We gotta be able to execute things a little bit better and hopefully we can take Monday and Tuesday in practice and kinda go through some of the situations and be a lot better for the next one.”

“I just keep talking to him, ‘Hey, be a great teammate. Play hard on D.’ We’re not worried about scoring points. We’ve established that as a team. The team met. We’re just trying to be the hardest playing, best Mudita team on the floor. Show your teammates a lot of Mudita. He ended up playing over 40 minutes. They did a good job. I mean, they didn’t give them much free. So we as a coaching staff got to do a better job getting him freed up. I didn’t do a good enough job on that, but he hung in there and did a really good job keeping his attitude grat, his energy.

“He ended up with seven assists. It wasn’t like he had a bad night. Shoot, he hit the game-winner, and he had seven assists and nine points. So he just didn;t have what we’re used to Mark having scoring-wise.”

“He was huge. That steal, layup kind of turned the whole course of the game there late, I thought. He made some big plays, was pretty good on defense. He goes to the free-throw line, makes two huge free throws late. He’s got that it factor about him. I mean, he’s a confident kid. He’s a winner, plays hard, high-IQ guy. He made a huge 3 for us late. He didn’t shoot it great most of the game. That was the only one he hit. But he made some plays when it counted, and we’re gonna need him to keep doing that here to make a run in March."