Nate Oats Evaluates Current State of Alabama's NIL

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Alabama basketball lost out on five-star recruit Caleb Holt on Tuesday morning, as the standout shooting guard chose Arizona over the Crimson Tide.

UA is up to three commits between four-star small forwards Tarris Bouie, Qayden Samuels and Jaxon Richardson. NIL has paved the way for literally thousands of college decisions, as athletes are often choosing whichever school gives them the most money. This probably wasn't the sole reason why Holt chose the Wildcats over Alabama, but it likely played a role.

Crimson Tide head coach Nate Oats was asked about the current state of Alabama's NIL during Wednesday's press conference. Here's everything he said about it:

"I'm not on social media during the year, but I did see some stuff on decisions in the last day or so," Oats said. "But first and foremost, I firmly believe that we're going to get the right players for our program. We want players that come here for reasons that don't have money at the top. I think when you take players in, and money is the number one thing, I think you end up with props.

"Now, having said that, we've got to be fair. We've got to be in the market, and we got to be competitive. And I think right now, I've had conversations with our administration, and we're going to be competitive. They're doing a very good job working with our donors, business owners, the whole thing with how it needs to look now.

"So if you look at the landscape of college basketball and college sports in general, I find it very hard to believe that some of these numbers that are being reported or 'promised' to players are legitimate. Now I'm not saying maybe they don't have the money, but the rev share numbers are significantly lower than what the whole budget should be promised, according to all players and kids.

"So it's got to go through and NIL Go. I'm not your risk my job, nor is Greg Byrne going to risk his, nor is school going to do anything outside of what's allowed. So every other dollar on top of a rev share has got to go through NIL Go.

"And look, a lot of our guys bring their own value to the table. They're in a place like Alabama, which I think has got the biggest name brand in college sports with the entire athletic department. Alabama's script A, brand recognition helps with a lot of that. There's no professional sports teams in Alabama, so our guys are the professional athletes in the state Alabama. All of that helps a ton. So I think we're going to be able to get a lot more through the NIL Go than a lot of places.

"But places can promise X amount of dollars. I'm going to be very curious to just see all these guaranteed, 'guarantee' (Oats uses hand quotes), if you will, because you can't have it in a contract guaranteed. So there's non-guaranteed guaranteed, whatever you want to call it, NIL deals, are they going to actually pass through and are they going be able to get the money that somebody should promise.

"And I think you see across college basketball that some of these longstanding injuries, and I'm not saying everyone is like that, but they may not be getting all the money that they were promised.

"We're at a place where, when we tell a guy that he's getting his money, he's getting his money, because we're very confident that he's going to be good. So I think with the money that's going to be delivered to both both rev share and NIL Go, we're in as good a place as anybody in the country."

Nevertheless, Oats and Alabama have shifted gears into the postseason.

The Crimson Tide's 13-5 record (23-8 overall) against the conference earned it the No. 2 seed in the SEC Tournament. The first round begins on Wednesday at 11:30 a.m. CT, but Alabama will not be playing until the quarterfinals on Friday against either 7-seed Georgia, 10-seed Texas or 15-seed Ole Miss.

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