Everything Nate Oats said following Alabama’s 77-69 win over Auburn
No. 3 Alabama went down to the Plains and came away with a 77-69 win over the Auburn Tigers on Saturday afternoon.
With the win, the Crimson Tide is now 22-3 on the season and has an unblemished record in SEC play at 12-0.
Despite star freshman Brandon Miller not having his best shooting day, other players stepped up to help carry the Alabama offense.
Freshman Rylan Griffen came off the Tide bench to lead all Alabama scorers with 16.
Alabama finished the last 7:57 of the game on a 21-10 run to help pull away from the Tigers.
Following the win, Alabama head coach Nate Oats would speak to the media and discuss his team’s performance against their arch-rivals. Here is everything coach Oats had to say:
Opening statement
“That’s a big win. They played hard. They were ready to go. Coach Pearl had them ready to go. I thought their game plan was good early. They did a great job on Brandon. But I thought we had some different guys step up. Jaden Bradley played well tonight. Rylan Griffen was huge, hit some big shots, hit some free throws when we needed him to. I thought our guys showed some resilience to weather a bad shooting game from Brandon and have some other guys step up.
“I thought the timeout they called with six whatever it was to go in the game when we started to make a run, they came out of the timeout and Nimari took that charge, that was one of the biggest plays of the game. We’ve been on our guys about making tough plays. We’re gonna have to make them on the road. I thought our guys stepped up and made some tough plays there in the second half when we needed them.
“We knew this was gonna be a tough game. They’re not an easy team to play. They play hard. Our guys have been through some tough games. We’ve played Houston on the road. We’ve played Arkansas on the road. Different types of a team. Missouri on the road is a really good offensive team. This is a big rivalry game, and our guys stepped up and played well for us.”
On the feeling of getting booed walking off the court with a win
“I think we get booed whether we win, lose or whatever here. They don’t like Alabama over here very well. But yeah, it’s a lot better to be booed than to have the court stormed and have to try to figure how to get off. I know it was their Super Bowl, and so it was nice to come win over here. We got their best version, I feel like.”
On the bench stepping up with Brandon Miller having an off shooting game
“Rylan led us in scoring. I thought Nimari played well. Nimari didn’t shoot it particularly well either, but he ended up leading up in blue-collar points and he made some effort plays. Not necessarily even just the bench, but Jaden Bradley was big there when we made a run late. To get the scoring out of him that we got was good. And then Brandon found other ways to impact the game. He’s still in double figures with 13. He got to the O boards. He got that tip-in that was big late after he got burned on the backdoor.
“But Rylan was huge. We don’t win this game without Rylan. And I really felt like he did the best job defensively on Wendell Green. I mean, Wendell Green can go get buckets as good as anyone in the country can, and I thought he was hurting Sears and Jaden Bradley a little bit, so we went with some more size and put Rylan on him. He had that one block and we tried to send him downhill to our bigs a little more. But he’s good. He may be the best guard we’ve seen all year. He’s really good.”
On the difference in noise at Auburn compared to at Oklahoma
“I don’t know if noise was the issue at Oklahoma as much as it was the mindset going in. We played at Houston, and the noise didn’t rattle us. I don’t feel like the noise is gonna rattle any of our guys. I feel like it’s what’s our mindset going into the game. I feel like we didn’t take Oklahoma as seriously as we needed to for whatever reason. That’s why we didn’t play as hard as we needed to. There was no way we weren’t taking Auburn seriously. They’re a really good team, the biggest rivalry game and they’re competing for an SEC Championship.
“I know they’ve lost five of their last six, but they were right there, a couple weeks ago, at the top of this league. Our guys came ready to go. We didn’t do a great job in the first half with some stuff. I felt like some guys weren’t as locked in on the defensive end. Maybe not the effort but it was more executing the game plan as much as we needed to. I thought we did a lot better job there, especially in the last 10 minutes of the game.”
On Auburn's perimeter defense
“They were up into the ball, being super aggressive. We were 6-of-21 from three. They got more threes off than we did this game. But we did score in the paint a lot more, double. Forty-four points for us and 20 for them, so we were able to get downhill with their aggressiveness and the way we spread the floor. But shoot, they played hard. Their physicality on Brandon probably affected him. I think we turned the ball over more than we have here recently.
“I think a lot of that was due to them being up into us. But it also did open the floor up a little bit. Jaden Bradley got downhill with how aggressive they were. Sears was able to get downhill some. Brandon was able to get down, finish at the rim some because they definitely were trying to run him off the line. They did a good job taking away what we’re trying to do. But we were 3-of-4 on our non-rim twos, so we were 20-of-24 at the rim. They take away the threes, but when you shoot 83 percent at the rim, that’s pretty impressive.”
On the maturity the team showed in handling the halfcourt late to get a win
“Yeah, I think that was big that we were able to execute some sets late when it turns into a little bit more of a halfcourt game. And I did feel like we didn’t get out in the break – now, they did a great job not letting us out in the break. You’ve gotta give them tons of credit. But I felt like when we did get out in the break, we were able to kind of close the lead that they had, and then in the second half, when we opened it up, we were able to get some fastbreak points. But again, in the first half, we just fouled so much, and they were living at the free-throw line. It’s hard to play fast when the other team’s at the free-throw line all game, so we have to do a better job not fouling.”
On his pride in the team’s response in a hostile environment, talk of Iron Bowl in recruiting
“We talk about our schedule in general. We play in one of the best conferences in the country. We’re playing, what we feel like is, the toughest non-conference schedule in the country. So I feel like those other guys prepared for this, but yeah, this is the big rivalry game. Brandon came to a lot of Alabama football games. He understands the Iron Bowl rivalry in football. This is the equivalent to the Iron Bowl rivalry, it’s just in basketball. I think Brandon understood it. The guys hadn’t been involved in it yet, they should understand it after playing in the environment they played in today.
“It’s great. It’s what makes college basketball different than the NBA. You’re not gonna get this passion out of the fan base in an NBA game. I love the passion that their fans bring. Hopefully, our fans pack our arena out. Hopefully, there’s not one empty seat when they come back to Coleman and we have to play them at our place because I think that’s what makes college basketball so great.”
On where Auburn ranks in getting a road win in the SEC (compared to Kentucky)
“Probably this year. We haven’t played at Kentucky this year. Did they end up winning against Georgia today or not? Georgia won. Kentucky’s not easy at when they’re good. And not to say that they’re not good this year, they’ve just been a little inconsistent. But when Kentucky’s Kentucky and they’ve got 23,000 or whatever in there – but I’ll say this: the environment here with them right on the court and the students right there, I think this is the toughest environment to play in. Arkansas is up there.
“We haven’t got a chance to play Kentucky. When we were good two years ago, it was COVID, it wasn’t full. We weren’t as good last year, and they were a lot better. I got to play at Kentucky when they were really when I was an assistant at Buffalo. That wasn’t easy. But I’ll put this here at Auburn up with anywhere in the SEC. It’s a good environment.”
On how to answer when teams limit Miller's touches
“We’ve had this in the past. You’ve gotta set screens to free him up and then you’ve gotta use him as a screener, too. If they’re not gonna help off him period, you start using him as a screener. If they’re gonna be super physical and grab and hold him, you’ve gotta set tough, physical screens to get him open, too. Those are the two biggest ways.”
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