Instant Analysis: Recapping Alabama Men's Basketball at SEC Media Day
MOUNTAIN BROOK, Ala. — It was a busy day at the Grand Bohemian Hotel in Mountain Brook on Wednesday as all 14 basketball teams of the Southeastern Conference took to the stage for the 2022-23 SEC Men's Basketball Media Day.
All 14 head coaches spoke with reporters as well as two players from each program. For Alabama basketball, head coach Nate Oats took to the stage while sophomore center Charles Bediako and graduate student forward Noah Gurley were the two athletes present.
Before fielding questions from the media, Oats took a moment for an opening statement.
"It's good to be here, it's good to be back," Oats said. "It's the first Media Day since my first year, so things are looking to get back to normal which is great. We're looking forward to the year. We've got a good young group. Got a lot of new faces. We've got 12 kids on scholarship and only four of them have ever played a game for Alabama before and [Jahvon] Quinerly's out — so maybe SEC play [or] sometime in December with an ACL — so we'll have three guys that have ever played a game for us that won't be suiting up for their first game. That's Darius [Miles], Charles [Bediako] and Noah [Gurley].
"That means we've got eight new faces: four freshmen and the other ones are all transfers. We need a lot of production out of the new faces so I think you'll see some — at the beginning of the year, there may be some games where we're a little inconsistent. I think we've got a lot of room for growth and we're looking to try to be peaking at the end of the year, so we may go through a few growing pains early.
"We've got a tough non-conference schedule to get us ready, but we're looking forward to it."
Check out the video at the top of the page where BamaCentral's own Blake Byler and Joey Blackwell discuss Alabama men's basketball's day at SEC Media Days from the Grand Bohemian Hotel.
