Everything Alabama Said After Winning the SEC Basketball Tournament

Alabama captured the 2021 Southeastern Conference Tournament championship with a 80-79 victory over LSU in Sunday’s title game.

It marks the seventh SEC Tournament trophy in Crimson Tide history and the first in 30 years, dating back to 1991.

Combined with winning the program’s eighth SEC regular-season title, the Crimson Tide has now claimed a combined 15 SEC championships in school history. The seven SEC tournament titles rank second in conference history as UA becomes the first team since Kentucky in 2017 to win both the regular season and tournament championships in the same season.

Other tournament titles include: 1934, 1982, 1987, 1989, 1990 and 1991.

Here's everything the Crimson Tide had to say:

Coach Nate Oats

Again, just want to reiterate how excited I am for our players that deserved it. They've played the right way. They've bought into what we're trying to get them to do.

That's a good team. They got a lot of talent on LSU's team. They came ready to go today. We kind of came out, had a great start. They answered it, made a run there in the second half. I thought we did a good job.

It was fitting it came down to their offense and our defense at the end to see who is going to win the game. I thought our defense came through. Keon Ellis had a huge block, guarded the underneath out-of-bounds play well, forced them to take a tough one. I wish we could have gotten the first rebound, we didn't. They got it. Fortunate they missed the put-back. Came out of here with a tight win.

Really happy for our guys. I think of those three seniors, Herb and Petty and Reese, that are all from the state of Alabama. Huge Alabama fans. Came here to win championship. Just the fact that I've been able to be a part of their journey here these last two years, super excited for them that they're able to close this senior year out with two championships, regular season and tournament championship.

You add in Tyler, who's a walk-on that's been here the whole time, then Jordan Bruner. Can't say enough about what Jordan's added to the culture here too.

I told Quinerly before the tournament started, I knew he was playing well, I thought he was locked in. I said, Let's go win the tournament MVP. I coached four of them at Buffalo, one as an assistant, three as a head coach. Time to add a fifth one to the mix.

Happy for Quinerly. Really happy for his family. Saw them up in the stands. His mom was crying. They've been through so much. Really glad he played well on a huge stage, show what he's about.

Shack came through after we struggled yesterday. I talked to him in his hotel room yesterday, just told him he's going to have a big game. He came through, had a huge game for us.

Happy for the guys. We'll get our NCAA tournament matchup here in a couple hours, head up to Indy.

Q. I think your voice is probably an indication, but how emotionally draining was this game?

NATE OATS: It's like this every year. I got to get all the cough drops, the teas with honey in them and stuff. I was just talking with Adam Bauman, my ops guy, and Hodgson, who was with me at Buffalo, get to this third day, up there, voice is shot, I'm exhausted. I really just want to take a nap.

At least in the MAC, you had a championship Saturday night, you could kind of relax for one night. There's really no relaxing here.

We get our matchup here in about two hours. Go back, pack my room up. It's a disaster because all I've been doing is watching video. Pack up my room, get the bus loaded, get our matchup, load up the video on my computer, watch some video on the way up to Indy. We'll get some sleep and rest after the NCAA tournament is over.

I'm pretty exhausted. Voice is shot. We'll get the voice back before next weekend, that's for sure.

Q. Everybody really had contributions. It seemed like Herb had something a little extra down the stretch especially after the foul call. Then the game winner with 19 seconds. You get tired of me asking about Herb after every game, but describe what he contributed.

NATE OATS: I mean, he was the Player of the Year in the conference, Defensive Player of the Year for a reason. That layup to put us up was big. We wanted to get out in transition. I didn't think we got out in transition quite enough, to be honest with you. I thought they got us in the halfcourt a little bit more than usual.

I'm trying to look right now, the box scores, to see what our transition conversion rate was. It was a little low. We didn't meet our goal on it like I thought. They made us play in the halfcourt a little bit more than we thought.

It was fitting we did get a transition bucket from Herb at the end of the game off a stop to put us up one. I thought we screwed some stuff up defensively there at the end of the game. Herb himself had a couple screw-ups, which is uncharacteristic. He gave up that O board, they hit the three, he got beat on the backdoor.

I thought Trendon played a great game. He hadn't played particularly well some of the earlier games when we beat them twice earlier in the year. I thought he was great today. Ends up with 30. We had a hard time guarding him today.

Herb did a pretty good job. Some of our other guys struggled a bit. I thought Reese did a pretty good job too.

Happy for Herb. We needed him to play well. We don't play well when he's not playing well. It's good to see he's back healthy. He's forced us away from a triple-double. The first game of the tournament he would have had a triple-double if we hadn't been up so much, and I had to actually play him more minutes. 13-11-6, a pretty good night for him.

Q. What are your plans for the logistics of getting to Indy?

NATE OATS: So we head out right after the selection show, drive up, get in there tonight, COVID test. You have to quarantine. I think you have to get two tests. I think we'll do one tonight, one tomorrow, quarantine tomorrow.

Give them the day off. They'll be in their rooms. They'll have their iPads, laptops. We'll get all the video loaded up they can look at on their own.

We'll reconvene Tuesday, we'll have video practice time. I don't know if we'll play. It's not Thursday/Saturday or Friday/Sunday like usual, everything is pushed back a day. We won't play possibly till either Friday or Saturday. So we'll have Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, or Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. So based on when we play, it will kind of determine how much we do each of those days.

We'll get it figured out on the bus ride up what our schedule will be once we get up there.

Q. You mentioned how big Keon Ellis's block was. Offensively he found his rhythm as well. 6 of 8 from the field. Depending on the status of Josh going forward, how big is Keon going to be for you guys?

NATE OATS: He's been big for us all year, whether he came off the bench or he started. Doesn't really have a whole lot to do with it. He's getting a few more minutes because Primo's minutes are gone now. Those have to get split up with Shack, Petty, Keon, some of those players.

He's big for us. He hit that big three in the second half. He's hit big threes for us in big games a lot this year, to be honest with you. Two of four from three. Shack shot it well. He shot it well. Even Reese hit two big threes. He hit a big one for us yesterday. I was really happy to see Reese give us the minutes that he gave us.

Keon has been one of our better defensive leverage guys all year. Yeah, he was lower than the team average today, which is good on defense, the points per possession. Reese had a great day defensively. Keon also had a great day defensively. We had some guys that didn't play particularly well on defense today. Those two, Reese and Keon Ellis, were pretty good for us.

Q. You mentioned Quinerly and his family. What did you do or say to his family and to him this year for them to believe he would be utilized the way he was?

NATE OATS: First game of the year, he had a pretty good game. I think they saw how he could be utilized. He had to take a couple weeks off in the middle of the season. Shoot, he's been pretty good.

I thought he got screwed on the Sixth Man of the Year award, to be honest with you. I thought his numbers were better. We won the league. Most of that voting, you look at who wins. If we didn't have a guy that deserved Sixth Man of the Year, you don't vote for him. But I thought we had one. I think he got short end of the stick on that one. I told him, I said, They may have screwed you on the Sixth Man of the Year, but let's go win the tournament MVP.

His mom talked to him, his dad talked to him. They're both involved in different areas. They're great people. They were never concerned about how he's being utilized or any of that stuff. I called them to get help on how to coach him to make sure I was getting the most out of him. We had a great conversations.

They're the parents you don't have to worry about. They're never questioning the coach, none of that.

Their dad is a Jersey cop. I love him. He's a man's man. I mean, if he needs to have a talk with Jahvon, he's going to have a talk with Jahvon. Jahvon's got some toughness about him. He's got that Jersey toughness. He'll play in there, fight a little bit. Pretty scrappy.

We had great conversations all year. They were so happy. I gave mom a hug up there in the stands. She just kept thanking us for giving him a chance. The kids thanked us for giving him a shot. Shoot, I'm thanking them for trusting us with their son. He's been great for us all year.

Herbert Jones

I feel like we came out more prepared this game. We didn't sustain the same type of energy we started out the game with. We had a couple of defensive lapses. I'm just so proud of the guys for continuing to fight the entire game, no matter what happened. I know LSU went on a run, we just didn't go away. We kept responding. We came out with the win.

Q. Take me through the final seven seconds, going one-on-one with Trendon at the end. Looks like you had a fingertip on it.

HERBERT JONES: That's what I dream of, getting a stop to win the championship. I mean, I didn't know they were going to throw the ball. They threw the ball to him, it was almost like an Iso. I take pride in my defense. I loved it. Came up with the stop and won the game.

Q. We talked about what it would mean for your class to cap off your season with the SEC championship. You got two this season. Now that's it finally happened, what are your emotions?

HERBERT JONES: Like J.P. said, it's kind of undescribable. Just all the work that we put in, the bad days we had, the adversity we went through, personally like my injuries throughout my entire career, Alex Reese kind of struggled shooting the ball this year, he came up and hit some big shots for us today. He played very aggressive on the offensive end. John Petty doing what he does on both sides of the ball.

Just a credit to our work. We stay with it. I don't think many guys could go through what we went through and come out on top like we did this year.

I'm just so proud and happy for Reese and John. Not just me, I'm more happy for those guys than I am for myself.

Q. Your layup that was the game-winning play, did Coach Oats tell you guys to push the ball? What was his message? Take me through the sequence when you saw the opening to get to the rim.

HERBERT JONES: When I got the ball, coach didn't tell me anything. When I got the ball, I seen it was a one-on-one, I mean, I just feel like I could take advantage of the matchup. That's what I did. I just went on attack. I feel like coach has a lot of trust in me to make the right plays down the stretch, and it paid off.

Q. Right before that you had a foul called on you. Seemed like on the next possession, you were determined to make something happen. You had a big dunk. What was your mindset right there?

HERBERT JONES: After they called a foul, I was a little frustrated. I didn't think I fouled him. I mean, that's out of my control. So I just tried to move on to the next play, do what was best for my team, try to get the win.

Q. SEC champions, what do you think you guys deserve in terms of an NCAA seeding?

HERBERT JONES: I mean, to be honest with you, I'm just happy that we don't have to worry about watching the selection show, to be honest. My three years here we had to watch the selection show. Now that we won the SEC championship, I mean, we don't even have to watch. I really don't care what seeding we get. I'm glad we get to play in the tournament.

John Petty, Jr.

If you could make an opening statement about winning the 2021 SEC championship, then take questions.

JOHN PETTY, JR.: It's kind of undescribable feeling. Just everything personally that we've been through, especially me and Herb being here four years, all the ups and downs, all the adversity we went through. Just to see us stay the course, continue working hard and win this, it feels amazing.

It wasn't our best game, but we got guys that always hold each other together, stay together. We pulled it out. I couldn't be more proud of these guys than I am now.

THE MODERATOR: Questions for J.P.

Q. What happened before the game with the scuffle with the two teams?

JOHN PETTY, JR.: Honestly I don't know. We was just in shootaround, layup lines. I turned around, seen a bunch of commotion. I was just trying to stop it. It kind of actually pumped us up, made the game more fun.

I honestly don't know what happened, but something happened.

Q. Earlier in the tournament you made your 300th three, you're the all-time leader in the history of Alabama basketball. What was it like to pull off what hasn't happened since 2006-2007 where a university has won the SEC football championship, then the regular season, and basketball tournament?

JOHN PETTY, JR.: It's an amazing feeling. I really didn't know until you actually said something. I didn’t know I made my 300th three. Appreciate you telling me.

You know what's amazing? Just to see our school do both things in basketball and football just tells about the school itself, just the way they recruit, the people that we have around our school. It's amazing. It's kind of, like I say, undescribable just because all these things haven't been done in so long.

It hasn't set in on us yet so I really can't even tell you how we feel.

Q. Describe the last LSU possession, the last seven seconds. What was your perception of what was going on?

JOHN PETTY, JR.: I just know we had to get a stop. I really didn't care what else happened. I just know we had to stop them from scoring that last seven seconds. No matter what we had to do, who did it, somebody just had to get them stopped. And we did, and we champs.

Tournament MVP Jahvon Quinerly

Man, that was another dogfight. Super proud of the guys just for kind of just finishing that game out. It was real back and forth pretty much the whole second half, just a back-and-forth game.

I'm so proud everyone just stayed locked in, got stops. That last play, seven seconds, Herb's defense, just super proud of the guys. I feel like this weekend kind of has been a turning point for me. I had an up-and-down year for the most part. It was a turning point for me. I'm a lot more comfortable on the court. I'm just comfortable in my role on the team. I know what I bring to the table.

Q. You said it was a dogfight out there. What was it like before the game with a little bit of a dust-up? What happened?

JAHVON QUINERLY: I personally don't know how it started or anything. It definitely motivated us even more going into the game. I would just leave it at that. I didn't really know what was going on.

It definitely motivated us, gave us an extra push before the game started.

Q. To be in the role of not being a starter, to be named MVP, what does that mean to you?

JAHVON QUINERLY: Man, it means a lot. It means a lot. I've been through a lot these last couple years. Being blessed to be named the MVP of the tournament, it's just a blessing. I'm just so happy my family got to watch.

All credit to my teammates. Without them, I wouldn't have really won it. Just the confidence that they put in me. We just all believe in each other. This is a great group of guys.

The feeling is -- I can't really explain it. It's an amazing feeling.

Q. This tournament as a whole, seemed like you were in a great offensive rhythm, then what you said afterwards, certainly great accomplishments for this team so far but not being done.

JAHVON QUINERLY: Oh, yeah, no, I have full faith that we can take this thing, take the NCAA tournament by storm, win the whole thing. I know how hard we work. I know we have one of the -- we have the best coaching staff in the country who just prepares us each and every game. I have full faith if we lock in and do what we got to do, we'll be crowned again.

There's more work to be done.

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