'Competitors With Pride' Fueling Alabama Basketball as it Seeks Bounce-Back Win
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — To not mince words, Alabama basketball got embarrassed on Saturday.
It allowed the third-highest point total in program history to Kentucky inside Rupp Arena, surrendering 117 to the Wildcats in a 22-point loss. The game was over by halftime, and after the game, Nate Oats said the effort was 'horrendous' among other things.
But following the loss, Oats feels like his team has responded well to the beating it took in front of the college basketball world just three days ago.
“I think we’ve got some competitors with some pride," Oats said during his Tuesday press conference.
The loss was just Alabama's third in SEC play this season, as the Crimson Tide still holds a tie for first place with Tennessee at the top of the league standings. After Alabama's two other losses in league play, it's responded extremely well.
The Crimson Tide lost on the road to Tennessee in dominating fashion back on Jan. 20, and followed it up with four straight wins. Auburn by four, LSU by 21, Georgia by nine, and Mississippi State by 32.
An average margin of victory of 16.5, plus possibly its best win of the season over Auburn directly after the loss.
After its loss to Auburn on Feb. 7, Alabama rattled off three straight, beating LSU by 17, Texas A&M by 25, and Florida by five. An average margin of victory of 15.7.
Now, coming off the Kentucky loss, Oats didn't hold back with the intensity of practice as the Crimson Tide prepares for a similar bounce-back to what it's already seen at times this season.
“[Monday] was one of the harder days we went," Oats said "I wasn’t going to kill them the day before the game but we were off Sunday, we went hard [Monday]. We went long, hard for the end of February.”
Oats was extremely complimentary of a number of his players' effort in practice, starting with the oldest player on the team, Aaron Estrada.
“I mean, go down the list, Aaron Estrada’s been great in practice, his defensive effort. He’s a guy that’s played a lot of basketball and he’s in his last season, he doesn’t want to look like we looked on Saturday. I don’t want to look like that for him," Oats said. “I thought Grant Nelson’s been a lot better, with his leadership. Nick Pringle’s had two of the best days he’s ever had. You kind of go down the list, I think Mark [Sears] understands he’s got to guard better, I thought yesterday in practice he was really good.”
Alabama's got a difficult home stretch in front of it, with three straight Quad 1 games on the schedule before closing the season at home against Arkansas. One of those games is a home game against Tennessee on Saturday, a game where the winner will have completely control over the SEC regular season title race.
But as the Crimson Tide chases a banner and looks to rectify its defensive woes that were put on full display Saturday, Oats believes his squad will be ready to go as the stretch run starts in Oxford on Wednesday night.
“I think guys have some pride, that you take a loss and we’re definitely not coming and playing bad back-to-back," Oats said. "It’s going to be hard to get this win on the road but I think our guys are going to play extremely hard to try to get the win.”
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