The 16th-ranked Alabama men’s basketball team lost to Florida, 105-87, on Tuesday night in Gainesville. After the Crimson Tide’s second consecutive loss, Alabama head coach Nate Oats spoke to reporters. Below is everything he said after dropping to 20-10 (12-5 SEC).
Oats’ opening statement…
“You’ve gotta give Florida a lot of credit. I thought their game plan was good. They were very physical with us. It’s hard to get our guards going early in the game. We let some offensive frustrations lead to some defensive letdowns that led to them opening it up. We weren’t playing great on offense for a large part of the first half. We were still in it. I mean, it was a 2-point game late in the first half. I think we gave up about 20 points in the last five minutes of that first half.
“I just felt like their physicality, their defensive intensity, our offensive struggles led to us not playing like we needed on the defensive end, which was keeping us in the game while our offense was struggling, and then it got opened up. And then we had it happen again the second half. I thought we were trying to make a run, and we couldn’t get any easy buckets. They did a great job on defense, and we kind of had some of our defensive letdowns.
“So disappointing loss. First time we’ve had back-to-back losses in conference play in a couple of years around here. But we have to bounce back and be ready to go on Saturday and see how high of a seed we can get going into Nashville.”
Oats on Rylan Griffen’s injury…
“He’s got a calf injury that we’re getting an MRI on in the morning. I’m not sure if it’s a bruise, strain, something. I thought he got knocked down. I don’t know, they thought it was a loose ball that both guys were going for.”
Oats on Latrell Wrightsell not playing in the second half…
“He’s coming back. We had a good step in the right direction where we’re getting him some game reps, just trying to get him back in game shape so he’ll play more and more moving forward.”
Oats on Florida doubling Alabama up in free throws…
“I’m gonna have to look at that. I thought there were some questionable ones. We were intentionally fouling late, so that helped some of it, but they had a significant advantage well before we started fouling. We drive the ball, and I thought they had a very physical play on the perimeter that they got away with. They put in the post and got to the free-throw line. … I’d have to go back and look at each call, but yeah, it’s not a recipe for winning games when you get doubled up at the free-throw line. You look everywhere else, they shoot 47 percent. We shoot 44 percent. We made five 3s. They make seven 3s. Rebounds are even, and we turned it over four more times. But shoot, 21 more free throws, it’s hard to win the game.”
Oats on getting good defense for longer periods…
“It’s one of those deals where our guys have to understand that there’s a defensive mindset that has to be there every play no matter what happens on offense. And really, to be honest with you, no matter what happens on defense. You can play great defense, they throw in a tough shot, you get a tough call that goes against you. You can’t let that frustrate you. You can play great defense for four or five minutes, offense isn’t going well, you have a couple of turnovers, you miss some open shots, like that can’t frustrate you if you’re really a defensive-minded team. And right now, we’ve got too many guys get frustrated and then have too many letdowns.”
Oats on where the team stands from a fatigue standpoint…
“It looked like we were tired tonight, to be honest with you. So we’ve gotta do a better job. We’re off tomorrow. We need to get rested, get in with the trainer, get a bunch of treatment and make sure we’re not going too hard Thursday, Friday, get their bodies and minds fresh, ready to play Saturday and then get ready to try to make a run in Nashville.”
Oats on the road atmosphere in Gainesville…
“The atmosphere was great. I think it’s great. I hope that every SEC game has a great atmosphere like this. We’ve had really good atmospheres at home for us. Todd (Golden)’s got this program rolling again pretty well. They’re coming out. When we pulled up, we saw the students wrapped all the way around the building. It’s great. It’s what makes college basketball great. I don’t know if it had anything to do with the turnovers or not, but shoot, when they needed some stops, the crowd got behind them, and it certainly looked like it helped them. I talked to our team, like, ‘Whether the 11,000 people, 15,000 people are for you or against you, it shouldn’t really affect your focus and your effort.’ But it certainly looked like it did tonight in the wrong way for us.”
Oats on why Alabama got away from shooting 3s in its slump…
“They did a good job on us off the line being super physical, not really even letting us get open. Like when they were able to hand-check like they were, you can’t beat anybody, you don’t collapse any help. We don’t want to take bad 3s. So if you can’t get some help and kick them to open shooters or get open on some screens – they’re super physical on off-ball screens, drives – it’s just hard to create 3s. We probably took a couple bad ones, and we weren’t shooting them. I did think we passed up a few we probably should have taken early in the second half. But they did a good job. Their game plan went well, they were super physical with us and it worked out well tonight for them.”
Oats on Grant Nelson issues with fouls…
“I’m gonna have to look at the fouls. I thought last game, there were some cheap ones. I thought this game, there were some cheap ones. I don’t know. I’ve gotta look at them. If we could make some teaching points, we need to because we need him in the longer than he’s been able to stay in the game these last two games.”
Oats on Alabama’s defense on Florida, Will Richard…
“I thought that they got out in the break. I’ll have to look at what our analytics had, but fast-break points were 27-8 on them. I’d have to see how many of those they got. We didn’t do a very good job in transition. Our guys weren’t getting back. Our points turnovers, 17-7, so they turned us over, got stuff in transition. He got loose. I didn’t think we did a terrible job on him in the halfcourt the whole time. I think he hit one off a kick-out that we weren’t supposed to be helping on. So we had a few screwups, but yeah, he’s played well against us both times.
“We probably did a little better job on (Walter) Clayton, maybe. He still ended up with 22, but he got 15 of them at the free-throw line, and last game, he got 16 3s up. We did a better job making sure he didn’t get 3s off, but he kind of lived at the line tonight.”
Not a member, Alabama fans? Join BOL today!
Have you subscribed to BamaOnLine.com yet? You can sign up for ONE MONTH of premium access to our Alabama coverage for just $11.99! Be able to read all of BOL’s premium articles and nuggets covering Alabama sports and recruiting and also join thousands of other Crimson Tide fans around the globe on the BOL Round Table message board! CLICK HERE!
