Everything Nate Oats Said After Alabama Basketball's Upset Win at St. John's

Alabama basketball traveled to New York and knocked off No. 5 St. John's, 103-96 inside Madison Square Garden. The No. 15 Crimson Tide improves to 2-0 on the season.

Head coach Nate Oats spoke to the media after the game. Here's everything he had to say:

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Opening statement

"First off, I want to tell all the fans out there that I thank Coach Pitino for giving us this opportunity. I mean, this is the Mecca of basketball. This is my first time coaching here. He doesn’t have to play a tough schedule. We've obviously been pretty good these last five years or so, so I want to tell him thanks for allowing us to come in and play the game. He's got one of the best teams in the country. They'll be one of the best teams when it comes down to it. Whether we won or loss, this was gonna be great for us, just to learn. I think our guys stepped up to the challenge. They’re one of the toughest teams, and Ejiofor was, I think, the leading offensive rebounder in the country last year. He’s preseason player of the year in the Big East, and shoot, he had 27 [points] and 10 [rebounds] and five o-boards. He kind of did his deal.

“I thought our guys did a pretty good job with most of their other guys. Hopkins and Ejiofor were the only two scoring it seemed like forever. So I thought we did a pretty good job holding the rest of them down. But probably the best thing we did outside of making tough plays, you know, we ended up out-rebounding them by one. They closed that gap. We were up a lot bigger on the rebounds for a while. Probably the best thing, other than just making all those tough play, was taking care of the ball. Our back court had two turnovers on the day. We had seven on the day—five of those came from our front court, some offensive foul calls. I thought our guards did an unbelievable job handling their pressure, handling the press, handling how they’re super physical in the half court. We did a good job. The only thing really standing out that we gotta really work on is guarding without fouling. It’s hard to win a game when the other team doubles you up at the free throw line. They had 40 free throws. We only had 22— that’s a huge discrepancy. We made tough plays. We just have to figure out to do it without fouling moving forward.

Was Taylor Bol Bowen an X-factor?

“ Huge. He was 100 percent the X-factor in this game. The plays he made, the blocks he made, even the ones he didn’t block where he challenged shots, the rebounds. I mean, he had seven at the half. If Taylor doesn’t bring it like he brought it, we have no chance to win this game, especially with the rest of the guys being in foul trouble in front court. We played him as a small ball five, and I thought he was great on Ejiofor. Played him at the four. I thought he was great coming over, challenging shots in the weak side. Shoot, sometimes he was at the four, and we cross matched him on Ejiofor.

“I couldn't be more proud of, like, his effort, his toughness, and that's what we're going to need out of him moving forward, and he brought it. You know, we chart those blue collar points. They give out a hard hat at the end of the game, and he won it. Him and Amari Allen were both over 20 on the blue collar points, effort, toughness plays. Amari was huge for a freshman. In his first week of college basketball to step up and play like he did in The Garden, he’s got himself a great career ahead.”

On discussions with Labaron Philon about taking over the offense after withdrawing from NBA draft…

“He called me late in the day to say he was pulling his name and said, ‘What if I told you I always wanted to come back?’ Like, Roll Tide. Let's go. Let's go win a championship. There's no more moral victories in this program. I think we’re the only team in the country to play in the Elite Eight and the Final Four in the last two years. Outside of the teams that have won national championships, I think us and Houston have been consistent at the top for the last five years. There’s a lot we’ve done— won more SEC championships than anybody in the SEC, more SEC wins, go on and one. But what we haven't done is win the whole thing. And that’s what he said. Wants to come back and win a championship.

“We’re a little overlooked right now, which that’s fine. I think we were overlooked Brandon Miller's freshman year. We're ended up being a No. 1 overall seed that year. We're probably better off being an underdog, probably will be an underdog at home against Purdue the way they handled us up there last year. We were an underdog here, we might be an underdog at home. Probably an underdog in Chicago against Illinois. Great. We put together a tough schedule. We're going to test ourselves early. We're going to see what we're made about. But he wants to win at the highest level.

“The biggest thing, I think, he needed to make a jump on was his leadership. A lot of enthusiasm for the game, like guys love playing with him. Always been a great teammate. Just now, he’s got to really lead. I think he’s doing that. I thought he was pretty good with it today. I mean, he settled us down, made some big shots, was talking. He’s pretty good.”

On the defensive performance…

“It’s a great point. I mean, we gave up a 1.14— not ideal. We wanted to win the second chance points, which we did. I thought our guys answered the bell on the rebounds. You know, we had 19, they had 15, but still gave up too many o-boards. Our transition D was a little suspect. Honestly, the biggest thing was we’ve got to figure out how to do it without fouling. I mean, you can't put a team to the free throw line 40 times and expect to get very many wins. You know, fortunate for us, they didn’t have a lot of shooting on the floor. We doubled them up with the 3s— we had 11, they only had six. We had more second chance points. They scored 28 at the free throw line. We scored 14. It’s hard to win that way.”

On St. John’s front court…

“They’re good. Prey hit the two 3s. Ejiofor hit the two 3s, so they developed some confidence in their shooting, like can stretch you out a little bit. We tried to sag him. We were comfortable with those guys making 3s because we needed the paint clogged up, but if they start knocking down 3s, I mean, they’re gonna be really… I mean, they’re going to be tough to play regardless. They’ve got one of the best front courts in the country. So our front court answered the bell— Noah, big Aiden. Big Aiden got in foul trouble. We’ve got to make these tough plays without fouling."

Closing statement:

"Can I make one more point? Our trainer and our training staff, if you watched, you look at the two guys that maybe wouldn’t play, like Holloway and Wrightsell. End up with 21, four and zero from Holloway, 17, three and zero from Wrightsell. And the fact that Wrightsell hasn’t been able to practice because he’s been hurt, I just think they deserve a little credit because we would never have won this game if those guys weren’t available to play. They did an unbelievable job. Probably at some of the places, they wouldn’t have played today, and they did a really good job getting in there. So, I’m proud of a lot of people in our program. The training staff is right at the top."

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