Nate Oats Embraces Alabama Basketball's Challenging 2022-23 Schedule
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — After putting together the strongest strength of schedule in the nation this year, things won’t get much easier for Alabama basketball next season.
Tuesday, it was announced that the Crimson Tide will take place in the 2022 Phil Knight Invitational in Portland, Oregon. Along with Alabama, the Thanksgiving-week tournament will also feature Iowa State, Michigan State, North Carolina, Oregon, Portland, UConn and Villanova. The stacked field could very well lead to multiple marquee matchups for the Crimson Tide in its first month of the season. However, that’s a challenge head coach Nate Oats gladly accepts.
“It’s an unbelievable field, and we get the opportunity to go out there and play against that level of competition that early in the year,” Oats said during his Friday news conference. “As you guys know, I like playing good teams, great competition early. Let’s get our weaknesses exposed. Let’s try to work on them in non-conference.”
While Oats welcomes the early competition, Alabama’s schedule next season already featured a challenging slate of opponents. The Crimson Tide is set to play Gonzaga in a neutral-site game inside Birmingham’s Legacy Arena. Alabama will also wrap up a pair of home-and-home series, traveling to Houston while hosting Memphis. In addition, the Tide will travel to Mobile’s Mitchell Center as part of a two-for-one series with South Alabama.
Alabama faired well against its highly-ranked non-conference opponents this season, beating then-No. 3 Gonzaga in Seattle before knocking off then-No. 14 Houston and then-No. 4 Baylor inside of Coleman Coliseum. The Crimson Tide (17-9, 7-6 in the SEC) is 7-5 in Quad 1 games, which is a large reason it sits at No. 22 in the NET rankings despite an inconsistent season.
Despite that success, Oats said his team’s inclusion in next season’s Phil Knight Invitational will likely put a cap on Alabama adding any more big-name opponents to next season’s slate.
“If end up playing three of those schools in that tournament — we’ve already got Gonzaga coming back to Birmingham next year. We got to go to Houston. Memphis coming to our place. There probably won’t be a whole lot other real high-level games that we add to the schedule based on that bracket right there.”
