Nate Oats Gives Update on "Banged Up" Alabama Basketball
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Despite the Alabama basketball's ongoing SEC winning streak, the team has seen its fair share of injuries and sickness over the last several weeks
On Friday afternoon, Crimson Tide coach Nate Oats gave an injury update for the Crimson Tide players heading into its Big 12/SEC matchup on Saturday at Oklahoma, starting with Jordan Bruner, who is still out after suffering a torn meniscus back on Jan. 12 during Alabama's first matchup at Kentucky.
"We're actually really banged up right now," Oats said. "Bruner was still able to shoot but he's not anywhere close to being able to play at this stage so it's looking still like two to three — maybe more — weeks for him."
Senior wing Herbert Jones has also been dealing with an aggravated hand injury. While the injury hasn't impacted his performance to too much, at least statistically, the injury was clearly bothering him this past Tuesday night at Coleman Coliseum.
That being said, Oats is taking precautions with Jones and is limiting him in practice to ensure his return to health.
"With the guys we did have available, Herb hasn't been able to practice since the game," Oats said. "He's still banged up, but knowing Herb he's gonna go. You could tell he wasn't 100 percent against Kentucky but he still almost had a triple-double so he'll hopefully be a little bit better than he was against Kentucky but we're trying to get him [as much] rest as we can before the games."
Senior forward Alex Reese and junior forward James Rojas were also withheld from practicing this week in order to recover from their various issues. Reese had limited availability against Kentucky and Rojas is still recovering from an illness that also saw him have limited minutes.
According to Oats, though, all of the injured Crimson Tide players should be good to go against Oklahoma minus Bruner.
"We should have everybody except for Bruner available for the game," Oats said. "I don't know if they'll be 100 percent but they'll all be available."
On Friday morning, news broke that Kentucky's matchup against Texas had been canceled due to positive COVID-19 tests on the Wildcats team. While the issue is certainly concerning for Kentucky, it has also raised concerns for Alabama due to its recent game this past Tuesday against the Wildcats.
Oats reassured Alabama fans on Friday that the Crimson Tide has not had any issues this week regarding the coronavirus despite its recent matchup against Kentucky.
"We're good," Oats said. "It's just something that everybody's got to deal with. We want to play games so we're gonna play. We've kind of had to deal with it all year. I think our medical team has done a really good job making sure that when we have had issues that way they haven't been too big of a problem to where we can't play the game.
"If I'm a player, I want to play as many games as I possibly can so as a coach I'm going to do everything in my power [and] our trainer's power to make sure that these guys are given the opportunity to play as many games as we can possibly get them to play."
Alabama will take on Oklahoma on Saturday at 11 a.m. CT on ESPN.
