Nate Oats: Defensive Improvement Important for Alabama Basketball

The Crimson Tide coach wants to see his team pick it up on the defensive end.

Feb 19, 2025; Columbia, Missouri, USA; Alabama Crimson Tide head coach Nate Oats gestures to players against the Missouri Tigers during the first half at Mizzou Arena. Mandatory Credit: Denny Medley-Imagn Images | Denny Medley-Imagn Images

TUSCALOOSA, Ala.— One of the multiple aspects of the Alabama basketball team's performance against No. 15 Missouri on Wednesday which left some to be desired for head coach Nate Oats was the defense.

The No. 4 Crimson Tide let up 110 points in its second consecutive loss, including the first 12 of the game. With No. 17 Kentucky coming to town on Saturday, Oats wants to see the intensity on the defensive side of the ball ramped up.

"Defense hasn't been good. It hasn't been good for a number of halves now," Oats said. "I think some of it's just, correct our fundamentals. What kind of sense of urgency do we have?"

Defense was also an issue for last season's Final Four team, which could score with the best of them nationally but wasn't as solid on the other end of the floor as some of Oats' past teams. Alabama let up 94 at home against No. 1 Auburn last Saturday.

He additionally believes some of the onus is on the offense to not turn the ball over, particularly in live-ball situations, leading directly to points in transition for the other team. He referred to such turnovers as pick-sixes.

"We've gotta get back to our fundamentals. Our transition [defense], we've gotta get back and talk. What's our communication been? It hasn't been good enough. We haven't been good. So, we've gotta get back, we've gotta get matched up, we've gotta get our defense set."

Oats said he'd spoken to a longtime friend in the NBA who told him it's all down to getting back to fundamentals, including improvement in guarding one-on-one, boxing out, sprinting back and communicating. He added that leadership on that starts from the top down, including himself.

Kentucky brings a team more than capable of knocking down shots into Coleman Coliseum. First-year coach Mark Pope has the Wildcats at 18-8 and (similarly to Missouri with Caleb Grill) one of the country's best perimeter shooters in Dayton transfer Koby Brea, who's seventh in the nation in three-point percentage.