BYU Head Coach Kevin Young Applauds Nate Oats' System

The Cougars have a similar play style to the Crimson Tide, but Young believes Alabama's utilizing it at another level.

Mar 27, 2025; Newark, NJ, USA; Brigham Young Cougars head coach Kevin Young calls to his team during the first half against the Alabama Crimson Tide during an East Regional semifinal of the 2025 NCAA tournament at Prudential Center. Mandatory Credit: Robert Deutsch-Imagn Images | Robert Deutsch-Imagn Images

NEWARK, N.J. –– 2-seed Alabama men's basketball obliterated 6-seed BYU 113-88 in the NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 on Thursday night to advance to back-to-back Elite Eights for the first time in program history.

The main story coming into this game was the fact that these two teams are among the best in the country offensively. Of course, questions arose about whether the winner of this game would be more in charge defensively, or if simply they came out victorious in the race to 100.

But Crimson Tide broke NCAA Tournament records for threes made (25) and threes attempted (51). Alabama also set those marks with over seven minutes remaining in the second half (the previous record was 21 made threes and 43 attempted) and just kept firing.

Alabama head coach Nate Oats and BYU head coach Kevin Young have similar offensive play styles, which is a big reason why they've led their respective teams to the Sweet 16. However, while the Cougars put up a stellar 88 points in the Prudential Center, it was no match for the Tide's pace.

"Well, first of all, I think Nate has done a good job at Alabama of having sustained success," Young said during the postgame press conference. "That's something that we're trying to do. So I have a lot of respect for him. This is hard. What they've done there is really hard. So a lot of respect to him.

"In terms of stylistically, Nate and I have talked -- it's funny because I don't know a lot of college coaches. He's probably one of the few coaches I do know pretty well. He came to training camp with the Suns. We kept a relationship going. So we did talk a little bit leading up to the season just about the spacing."

Young just wrapped up not only his first season at BYU, but his inaugural year as a college basketball head coach. He was previously an assistant coach for the Philadelphia 76ers and Phoenix Suns before taking over for former Cougars and current Kentucky head coach Mark Pope this offseason.

His experience coaching in the NBA has translated to his BYU, and while he has a plethora of talent that features a couple of players with All-Big 12 honors, it wasn't enough for Alabama's backcourt, who runs Oats' offense.

"He's one of the, I think, few teams that spaces like we do. Now, obviously, like I said, they have more dynamic guard play than we had. So when you have that kind of spacing and that kind of dynamic guard play, it's really, really difficult to guard. They're obviously heavy into their shot profile and their shot diet. That's something that we've been -- I think them and us kind of had -- I think we were 1 and 2 in efficient shot diets. So there's a lot of similarities.

"But I think for me anyway, it just kind of validates that that style of play is really hard to stop, especially if you can recruit to it, which they've done. And all coaches are thieves, man, so I'll just continue to learn from all these really good coaches and try to be better next year and continue to build our program."