How Alabama Basketball is Solely Focusing on Texas With Auburn Looming

Crimson Tide head coach Nate Oats details the importance of treating every game equally.

Feb 8, 2025; Fayetteville, Arkansas, USA; Alabama Crimson Tide head coach Nate Oats during the first half against the Arkansas Razorbacks at Bud Walton Arena. Mandatory Credit: Nelson Chenault-Imagn Images | Nelson Chenault-Imagn Images

No. 2 Alabama is set to host No. 1 Auburn on Saturday and nearly the entire college basketball world is ready to watch the 44th all-time meeting between the top-2 teams in the country.

The key word there was "nearly" as Crimson Tide head coach Nate Oats doesn't want to talk about the Tigers just yet. Alabama is already in Austin, Texas for Tuesday night's road matchup against the Longhorns.

It's difficult to prepare for an unranked team when the reality of hosting the No. 1 program in the nation is on deck. However, Oats explained during Monday's press conference how he's assuring that the Crimson Tide is solely focusing on Texas.

"The scouting reports that we're doing as a staff are the same as they've been [for any other team]," Oats said. "I told these guys too and we've talked to them. We kind of showed him a little bit of some stuff Tom Brady said about how he preps for different things. We've got to prep for this Texas game like it's the Auburn game."

NFL legend Tom Brady's seven Super Bowl wins make him an excellent example. The same can be said for former Alabama football head coach Nick Saban who won the same amount of rings as Brady when combining his time with the Crimson Tide (six titles) and LSU (one). Oats also mentioned Saban's ideology when it comes to looking ahead at box office games as the all-time-great said that comparing the hierarchy of games was a 'stupid.'

"You can't all of a sudden 'turn up your preparation for a big game,' if you will. That's asking for disaster. It's showing your immaturity. We've got a lot of fifth-year seniors, we should not be immature. We should be prepping for Texas, like we're prepping for Auburn, like we would prep for an NCAA Tournament game.

"So when we get to the NCAA tournament, when we get to the SEC tournament, when we get to these so-called 'big games' we've already been prepping for every game like it's a big game. So that's what we've been trying to tell our guys. And I hope that they're mature enough to understand that. And I think they are."

Texas head coach Rodney Terry led his team to an 11-2 record heading into SEC play, but the Longhorns have struggled to finish games against the conference as it currently holds a 4-7 record since January.

Nevertheless, while Alabama is favored to hold most of the Texas players in check, the same can't be said for Longhorns guard Tre Johnson, who leads the SEC in points per game.