You call that trash talk? USC words vs. Alabama basketball were pretty tame | Goodbread
Nate Oats wasn't specific at all on what he was talking about.
The Alabama basketball coach was obviously annoyed. Not about his team's performance – a 74-47 home win over South Carolina on Tuesday at Coleman Coliseum – but about a double-technical foul with 8:09 remaining. Called on Alabama's Max Scharnowski (not in the game at the time) and Carolina's Meechie Johnson, the foul sequence came with Alabama ahead 54-37 and in the process of putting an easy win to bed. Asked about it after the game, Oats said the following:
"They said our guys were talking. There was a lot of talking. … Their guys were yelling at our bench for whatever reason, I don't know. Then they made the statement (that) the SEC isn't ready for them. I guess we'll see if the SEC is ready for them. But this SEC team was ready for them."
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In a climate where college coaches are boring, some even by design, Oats is anything but that. Nobody can say he lacks candor. In this case, however, he left it to anyone listening to go digging for his reference. And in the hours after, the only thing anyone in the group of reporters who covered the game could come up with was a remark by South Carolina's Myles Stute on Dec. 30. South Carolina had just beaten Florida A&M in its last non-conference game of the season. Asked if he thought the Gamecocks were ready for the SEC schedule, Stute simply said "I hope they're ready for us. That's my answer. I hope they're ready for us."
Not exactly smack talk of the highest order.
Nor is it even exactly the words Oats (presumably) alleged were said. Maybe Oats was talking about some other quote from someone else entirely. But if that's where Oats' reference came from, it's a little hard to believe the coach even caught wind of something that innocuous, especially coming from a player rather than a fellow head coach.
Athletes, after all, are supposed to be confident. All Stute did was speak confidently.
If we're giving Oats the benefit of the doubt, it must be said that only he and whoever was within earshot of the double technical foul know exactly what was said. And that it could've been anything. Maybe something incendiary. Maybe Oats had a good reason to spout a bit.
And, again, he might've been referring to something else entirely. Deadlines for columns don't mesh well with a deep dive into every press conference South Carolina has held this season.
But it's also fair to ask this: Was Stute's remark really the brag Oats might have implied it was?
No, it wasn't.
Granted, I've got a high standard for what defines trash talk. I witnessed 1980s Miami Hurricanes football, after all.
Tuscaloosa News columnist Chase Goodbread is also the weekly co-host of Crimson Cover TV on WVUA-23 and the Talkin' Tide podcast. Reach him at cgoodbread@gannett.com. Follow on Twitter @chasegoodbread.
This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Alabama basketball vs. USC trash talk more firecracker than firestorm
