Ahead of Wednesday’s Iron Bowl of Basketball clash, Alabama coach Nate Oats was asked if this season has been his best coaching job.

With nine games remaining in SEC play, Oats, perhaps in fear of jinxing what's been a strong run of form for the Tide, declined to evaluate his work thus far.

“I think as soon as you start feeling like you're doing a great job coaching, the sky starts falling,” Oats told local media Tuesday. “I'll give you a really good self-evaluation of that after the season's over.”

Though Alabama (16-6, 8-1 SEC) still has work to do in the regular season. But the question of whether or not this is Oats' best coaching job with the Crimson Tide is a valid one, given Alabama is in a position to win the conference after being picked to finish fifth in the preseason poll, and has a chance to be one of the top 16 seeds in the NCAA Tournament. The argument becomes even stronger considering what he was left with following the Tide's 31-6 campaign in 2022/23.

Entering his fifth season, Oats had to replace eight key departing players and bring in a completely new coaching staff, after his three assistants all left for head coaching jobs.

“I don’t want to act like it's not the same at a lot of places,” Oats said. “There’s a lot of turnover on a lot of rosters but to have dang near a whole new staff with that much turnover was probably a lot.”

Alabama was a team full of newcomers both on the court and on the sideline. Oats and he and his new staff went through some growing pains as it attempted to figure out how it could best put those new and returning players in a position to win.

Last season, Oats employed an offensive and defensive coordinator to oversee both sides of the ball. This year, he initially tried to place his current assistants in similar roles with Ryan Pannone overseeing the defense, while Austin Claunch and Oats worked with the offense. Fellow assistant Preston Murphy was working with personnel and scouting, a similar role that former Tide assistant and current Arkansas State head coach Bryan Hodgson previously occupied.

Those roles, however, didn’t allow Oats to get the most from his assistants. Pannone's work with game film and background in the NBA G League gave him familiarity with the Xs and Os on offense. For Claunch and Murphy, Oats said seeing how he taught defense helped them get more comfortable coaching that side of the ball.

“We all had to figure out what our niche was gonna be,” Oats said. “I think it took us a little while. We made some changes as to how we did things at the end of nonconference play.”

Oats switched things up. Alabama split defensive duties and scouting between Claunch and Murphy, while Oats also worked more directly with the team on that side of the ball. Pannone and Director of Scouting & Analytics Adam Bauman took over much of the offensive responsibilities.

It worked. After a 6-5 start, Alabama has lost just one of its last 11 games, with a chance to improve to 9-1 in conference play and do the double over archrival Auburn. Its offense has remained near the top of every plottable metric and both coaches and players continue to get more comfortable after earning their stripes during a tough nonconference stretch.

The Tide’s defense has also improved steadily, which Oats also credited to the coaching adjustments and being able to pay more attention to which players are performing on that side of the ball.

It’s a strategy Oats has employed since his coaching days at Romulus High School, where Oats said he would train an assistant to run the offense and he would coach the defense. His direct involvement with the defensive operations keeps players more engaged on that side of the ball, knowing that slacking on defense with the head coach watching equals fewer minutes. It's a simple tactic Oats developed at the high school level, which has helped him elevate the Tide’s defensive effort this season.

“This was a group that our defense was pretty bad,” Oats said. “We weren't gonna win a conference championship with the defense being that bad. So I kind of flipped over there, let them know ‘If you're not going to guard and I'm paying attention to it every day in practice, I'm just not going to play you period.’”

While Oats still looks to get Alabama’s defensive output close to matching its offense’s he said the team has made some strides on that end of the floor. The Crimson Tide currently rank No. 56 in adjusted defensive efficiency according to KenPom. Oats said he wants his defense to be in the top 30.

Oats also said that he's been impressed with his new staff in its first season together. His assistant's versatility as coaching minds, combined with their willingness to change things up for the good of the group has helped the Crimson Tide be in a position to stay near the top of the SEC, and make noise in March despite so much turnover.

“The one thing I'll say about the staff is all of them are just ‘whatever you need, coach, whatever,’” Oats said. “They can all coach basketball. Offense, defense, whatever. So they let me kind of shuffle few things around.”

The Crimson Tide will look to pick up its ninth win in conference play when it travels to Auburn (18-4, 7-2) for a rematch with the Tigers. The IBOB tips off at 6 p.m. Wednesday inside Neville Arena. The game can be seen on ESPN2.