Nate Oats' intense scheduling model is starting to pay off for No. 9 Alabama. The Crimson Tide Tide picked up a marquee and gritty 85-80 overtime win over No. 6 Houston on Tuesday in its first game of the Players Era Festival. The win sets the Tide up to potentially play in the tournament championship game should it pick up a second victory over Rutgers on Wednesday.

The victory was also the culmination of some growth for Alabama over the last few weeks. Two games ago, the Tide lost 87-78 to a talented and similarly gritty Purdue team on the road. Alabama looked lethargic at times in a hostile environment inside Mackey Arena and it was a night-and-day difference to the Tide team that took the floor against Houston on Tuesday.

“The Purdue game we got manhandled a little bit," Oats said after the game. "I didn’t think our physicality was where it needed to be. We turned the ball over too much. The ball didn’t move. I thought if we had brought the intensity we brought tonight to that game it might have been a little bit different, but that’s why you play them.”

Alabama appears to have grown quickly and significantly after its first defeat of the season 17 days ago. And a different Tide team showed up against one of the best and most disciplined teams in the country as a result.

For Oats, it's an example of why he schedules the way he does. Alabama’s non-conference schedule is littered with top-25 teams and midmajors picked to win their conferences. Playing a team like Purdue on the road is sometimes the best way to expose key areas of weakness and learn some of the hard lessons that any dominant team has to learn.

Oats also praised his players for the necessary strides they made to pick up wins against both Houston and Illinois – Alabama defeated the Fighting Illini 100-87 in Birmingham last week. Alabama bested the Cougars on class 48-39 and turned 20 offensive rebounds into 15 second-chance points, a crucial point of emphasis Oats highlighted before the game.

Alabama’s ball movement was also excellent, which allowed for five players to reach double figures and saw Mouhamed Dioubate have a career day with 10 points and 16 rebounds. Mark Sears was also able to find his groove with better ball movement and responded to putting up a goose-egg against Illinois with 24 points against an elite Houston defense.

“I think what they exposed we’ve got better at,” Oats said. “The ball’s been moving a lot better. Our postgame’s been a lot better, our rebounding, our toughness has been better. So we were better against Illinois. Illinois is a really skilled, great offensive team and I thought we were solid on defense for a lot of that game. Our offense was significantly better than Purdue. Now we kinda go back to a game against Houston where it’s kind of just gritty, tough, physical — great defense and rebounding team and we matched their physicality for most of the game."

Now Alabama can’t afford to let its momentum drop off if it wants a chance at the $1.5 million dollar prize that will go directly into the NIL coffers of the team that wins the Players Era Festival. The Tide will face Rutgers team that was ranked in the top 25 before a defeat at the hands of an Oats disciple in Antoine Pettway and Kennesaw State. The Scarlet Knights are led by two of college basketball's elite freshmen in Ace Bailey and Dylan Harper, and Oats said he's already informed his team of the fight he's expecting from both young stars and the rest of Rutgers' supporting cast Wednesday night after the Scarlet Knights suffered a tough loss of its own.

"Coach [Steve Pikiell] has done an unbelievable job," Oats said. "They’re tough, physical, similar to Houston in that regard in some ways. So we gotta bring it against them again. They’ll be a little bit younger with some high-level talent with [Dylan] Harper and Ace Bailey. So they’re good. They’re really good. We’re gonna have to be ready to go tomorrow.”

Alabama (5-1) tips off against Rutgers (5-1) at 9 p.m. CT Wednesday inside MGM Grand Arena. The game will be broadcast on TBS.