Everything Nate Oats said following Alabama’s win over No. 1 Houston
Nate Oats and the Alabama men’s basketball team went on the road on Saturday and took down Kelvin Sampson and the No. 1 ranked Houston Cougars.
Not only did Alabama get the impressive win, but the Tide also had to recover from a 15-point second-half deficit to win the matchup between top-ten teams.
Alabama was led by freshman big man Noah Clowney who tallied 16 points, 11 rebounds, and 2 blocks.
Star forward Brandon Miller did not have his best game of the season, but the freshman came through in the clutch sinking all six of his free throws in the final minute to seal the victory for the Tide.
Here is everything coach Oats had to say following the monumental win.
Opening statement
“This is one of those character wins that shows that our guys are gonna keep fighting no matter what the score is. We could have easily given up down 15. The start of the second half wasn’t great. We kind of made some changes with the bench guys, hung in there, kept clawing away at the lead, finally took the lead and then were able to pull away from them. That’s a tough team. You’ve gotta give Houston a ton of credit. They give you everything you can handle. Our offense was looking like a disaster for most of the game, and that’s total credit to them. They take you out of what you wanna do.
“They took Brandon out of what he wanted to do. I think he showed a lot of character, stepping up and making all free throws late after we struggled to make them early. But I thought we got some contributions from some guys – Rylan Griffen coming back to his home state of Texas was huge in that run. Jaden Bradley was big on both sides of the ball. He ends up being our second-leading scorer – four assists, zero turnovers. We talked about taking care of the ball, and he did a good job. He plays 25 minutes and didn’t turn the ball over against them, which we had too many turnovers. But I thought in the second half when we cut it to three, that’s when we were able to make that run after we got down.
“Huge program win. Not sure how many teams get the chance to play two No. 1 teams in non-conference, let alone beat them. But I think that shows where we’ve gotten this program to that we can play with anyone in the country at this point.”
On others stepping up in big games when Brandon Miller has struggled
“We’ve got a lot of players. Obviously, Brandon’s talented. He’s really good. He’s a 6-9 guard that can do a lot. But for a freshman that’s never been in college basketball before, you can’t expect him to be Superman every night out. So we’ve gotta get production from lots of guys. Another freshman, Noah Clowney, had a great start to this game. Teams may decide that they sag off of him anymore. He’s making shots and hitting threes. He was all over the glass. Lots of guys stepped up at different points, and I think it shows our depth.
“I was watching our game against them (last year) last night, and shoot, that was a tough win obviously at home. We barely got the win. But I was kind of looking at who we were playing. We were really small at that point. Four smaller guards and Juwan Gary at the five. Charles had fouled out of the game. We didn’t have many options. This year, we’re deeper. It shows. Nick Pringle was great in practice all week, at least at the end of the week. He came in and gave us decent minutes. Rylan Griffen, who had been struggled a little bit, comes home to Texas in a big-game atmosphere, doesn’t let it get to him. He made some tough plays. I thought Noah Gurley, we’ve been challenging to rebound. He ends up being our second-leading rebounder in 19 minutes with six rebounds.
“So I thought there were plenty of guys that played hard, played well. We got Nimari to knock down some threes. We’ve been seeing him do it in practice. Sears made that huge three out of the timeout. We kind of went back to the same play we’d gotten Shack one late-game last year, and Sears nailed that thing. So some guys that struggled through the course of the game stepped up late when we needed them to, so it shows a lot about them.”
On how Alabama limited their turnovers in the second half
“(Laughs) I don’t know that we made too many adjustments. We tried to re-emphasize with the guys what we’ve been telling them all week in practice. We tried to simplify it for them. I think they started backing off their trapping in the ball screens when we started handling a little bit better. If we’d have handled it better in the first half, the pressure may have come off. They trap you hard. They put a lot of pressure on your guards to make the right decision. Sometimes your smaller guards have a hard time seeing over their size. They’ve got athletes covering passing lanes. I think the one turnover Sears had trying to throw it across the court, they cover some ground in a hurry.
“So we tried to simplify it a little bit, get to some different types of actions where we’re not tempted to throw some of those passes. And some of it, we just needed to take care of the ball. Some of it’s back to high school basketball. You just take care of the ball, you quit traveling. We had three travels in the first half. We needed to do some of that, too.”
On if he received a postgame shower from the players
“Yeah, they got me. I don’t mind. If we keep beating No. 1 teams, we can take it to the cleaners. All this stuff can be cleaned pretty well. They got me with some Gatorade instead of just water this game, so I might have to actually take a shower this time.”
On Alabama's defense in the second half
“I thought it was great late. Charlie does an unbelievable job running our defense. He had some in-game adjustments. He’s been in the NBA for five years, so there’s plenty of in-game adjustments at that level. But we kind of went smaller and started trapping their guards a little bit more, and then we went back with Charles late. But we mixed it up a little bit because it wasn’t obviously working great there early in the second half. It also just showed our guys, we’ve gotta get stops.
“I thought Jaden Bradley was great on Sasser. Nimari was great on Sasser. Sears did a good job on D. Clowney had a really night. Rylan Griffen had the steal. Different guys stepped up on the defensive end for us. So they scored two field goals in the last eight minutes of the game? That’s the No. 1 team in the country, too, so if we can do that – now, they don’t have the No. 1 offense, but they’re pretty good. I think they were top 20 in offensive efficiency. So if we can do that against them – not that you do it for eight minutes, but you can get stops against anybody we’re playing on the schedule the rest of the year if we really lock in and pay attention to the scouting report and do what we need to do.”
On players saying they don't care what their opponents are ranked
“It shouldn’t matter who we’re playing, we should come out with the same kind of mindset. Obviously, it means more when you beat the No. 1 team in the country, but we had some big wins last year, and we’ve talked about this, this current team’s talked about this. We can’t go to Seattle, beat Gonzaga and come back and lose to Georgia or lose on the road to Missouri or even the Davidson loss up in Birmingham. We’ve gotta take care of business no matter who it is.
“We can’t have a letdown Tuesday when we play Memphis. And Memphis is good. They kind of started us on our skid last year, if you remember. So we’ve gotta have the same mentality whether it’s the No. 1 team on the road, whoever it is – at home, neural, road. We’ve gotta bring it every night, and I thought for the last 12 minutes of this game, we were really good. Our defense was pretty good in the first half. I thought it got bad there at the beginning of the second half, kind of the end of the first half, beginning of the second half. But if your defense as good as what we’re trying to tell our guys it needs to be, you’re gonna be in every game, and I think that came true tonight.”
On Jaden Bradley's performance
“When we recruited him, he was a highly-rated point guard because he’s a winner and knows how to play. He’s not the best shooter. He’s working hard on it. We’re encouraging him to keep shooting. He’s not the quickest guy, but he’s got enough quickness to get where he needs to get on the court. But he makes winning plays – defensively, offensively. He’s smart, got a high IQ, wants to get his teammates involved. You see him spraying it out. We missed some open threes that he got us tonight, too. He’s a winner, and he’s shown it. I don’t think the big game affects him. It might make him better, to be honest with you, if you look at what he’s done in some of our bigger games. Super happy for him. He’s a great kid. He just kind of plays with the minutes you give him, and shoot, if we need him to play 25 minutes, he’s ready to play 25 minutes. He was great tonight.”
On his message to Brandon Miller when he is struggling
“At halftime, I kind of told him, ‘We’ve gotta do more to affect the game. They’re trying to take you out. You can do more than just score the ball. Your shot’s not dropping, what are you gonna do?’ We kind of challenged him defensively. He was much better in the second half defensively. ‘Can you go get an O board? Can you get a defensive rebound?’ So I thought late in the game, he was in there when we were closing that game and making that run, and he got some rebounds and then he stepped up to the free throw line and did it.
“He’s not gonna be 7-of-9 from three, 5-of-9. He’s not gonna shoot that way every night out. Tonight, he was 0-of-5 from three, but at one point, he was like 50 percent from three. Teams are gonna key on him. I think teams are gonna realize that if you totally key on him, we’ve got plenty of other players that can beat you. So you’ve gotta be careful just keying on him. They were really keying on him. Jaden Bradley gets down in the lane and dunks the ball because Jarace Walker’s so concerned with guarding Brandon Miller, he doesn’t switch the ball screen or edge or whatever the plan they were supposed to be in at that point, just lets him go right down the middle of the lane and dunk the ball.
“We’re gonna use Brandon as a screener sometimes. We’re gonna take him off screens, and he’s great that way. He’s gonna be playing in the NBA next year even if he has an 0-for-8 game. His talent level is so high. Obviously, we want him to get better and let’s work with him on doing other things to help win the game, but I thought he showed he could do that in the second half.”
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