TUSCALOOSA, ALA. — Nate Oats knows there’s a little added intensity for rivalry games. Though his recent bouts against Auburn weren’t the first matchups the Alabama basketball coach mentioned Friday.
“Maranatha was a Baptist college in Watertown There’s another college in Watertown, Northwestern. That was a big rivalry there too,” Oats said with a smile, referring to his alma mater. “Two small Division III schools, those little gyms got packed. I was a high school coach in Romulus our neighboring city Bellville, big rivalry game. We were able to beat them my first year.”
Oats did acknowledge that the Iron Bowl of Basketball has a bit more magnitude than games with DIII alma mater or the high school that kickstarted his coaching journey. And with 10 games against Auburn under his belt, you can believe he gets it.
“Our players know there’s a lot more riding as far as exposure and all that stuff," Oats said. "That’s out there. It’s not like these guys don’t have phones and aren’t on social media. They get it. But I think that we also gotta understand a win is a win in conference. A win against Texas is one win. A win vs. Auburn is win and right now we’re just fighting for wins.”
Keeping composure in an already-high-stakes rivalry will be understandably difficult this season. The latest Alabama-Auburn game will feature the No. 1 vs. No. 2 teams in college basketball — the first-ever iteration of such a matchup between two SEC teams. Fans, pundits and likely even the players at times have been looking ahead to Feb. 15.
But for Oats, the reason the game is as big as it is in the first place is a credit to his players and staff for treating every game with the same energy it will treat Saturday afternoon’s showdown.
“We made the point before the Texas game talking about getting ready for ‘Big games’ when there’s a big game looming on the weekend, by prepping every game like it’s a big game,” Oats said. “So we’ve tried to make that point all along. We do what we do. We give you the same edits. It’s not like we’ve got 10 more edits ready for Auburn. No, we give you our Day 1 edit, our personnel edit, our Day 2 edit, how we score against them. We’re giving them the same edits.”
The strategy has largely worked for Alabama — save for a loss to Ole Miss in which the Tide let its head drop and was bested in multiple areas that culminated in defeat to the Rebels. Alabama has rattled off seven wins since and showed some growth by not folding on the road against Arkansas after it nearly blew an 18-point lead in the second half.
For Oats, managing Saturday’s game also means focusing on what matters — the scoreboard. The emotion of a rivalry game, one in which players have plenty of familiarity with one another can boil over into players making losing plays.
Oats pointed to examples from Auburn’s Chad Baker-Mazara, who was ejected in the first half of the Tigers' loss to Yale in the NCAA Tournament. He also cited Tide forward Mouhamed Diobuate, who was given a flagrant foul for grabbing Oklahoma guard Jeremiah Fears’ ankle earlier this season.
“There’s no point for a takedown in wrestling,” Oats said. “There’s no points for knockouts. That’s not what we’re doing here. So let them try to win the boxing match, wrestling match. We’re going to try and win the scoreboard. We walk out of here winners on the scoreboard. So anything that takes away from winning on the scoreboard is losing basketball. So retaliating to something dumb is losing basketball. Let the refs catch them doing it.”
Alabama has been able to tune out the outside noise in the buildup to its high steaks rivalry game. Now that it's here, Oats has to rely on that discipline working for his team yet again if the Tide wants to take down the No. 1 team in America on Saturday.
Oats' experience guiding Alabama in big games has helped Oats tie Wimp Sanderson for the most top 25 wins as Alabama’s head coach. If he wants to pass Sanderson on Saturday, it will take a major effort from Alabama on both sides of the ball. But that doesn’t mean Oats is doing anything different than his usual game prep, which has done a pretty effective job at getting Alabama to the heights it has reached this season.
“We prepare our guys well to play in big games and I don’t think overdoing it and getting extra stressed out helps prepare them to win,” Oats said .”We put the scouting report in. We get locked in and we execute the scouting report. We win.”
Alabama (21-3, 10-1) will host Auburn (22-2, 10-1) at 3 p.m. CT Saturday inside Coleman Coliseum. The game will be televised on ESPN.
