The Nate Oats Wish List for Alabama in the Second Iron Bowl of Basketball

TUSCALOOSA, Ala.— Alabama men's basketball's 94-85 home loss to Auburn on Feb. 15 was the beginning of a downward spiral for the Crimson Tide as it has now lost four of the last six games––all of which came against ranked teams.

Throughout the cold stretch, Alabama has gone from the AP Top 25's No. 2 team in the nation, then to No. 4, then to No. 6, and following Wednesday's loss to Florida, the Tide could move in the wrong direction from its current No. 7 rank.

Many of the losses have had things in common like poor defense and rebounding, inconsistent shooting, rough starts and more. This all stemmed from the first loss to Auburn and now the Crimson Tide aims to fix those mistakes in a rematch against the No. 1 Tigers on the road this afternoon.

"We didn't get out in transition enough [in the first game]," Alabama head coach Nate Oats said during Friday's press conference. "We didn't get enough quality shots. On our offensive side, we've got to chart it a little better.

"I think defensively, we didn't do a great job drawing them off the line. We decided to play off a couple of guys and [Auburn forward Johni] Broome's made two threes in his last five games, six games, and he made two against us. [Chaney] Johnson made a couple of threes.

"Do we make earlier adjustments on some of that stuff? Some of it is the game plan the coaches put together and it didn't work as well as what we hoped. Some of it is our guys have got to give a little bit better effort."

Auburn went 12-for-30 from downtown (40 percent) in the first game against Alabama. In total, Auburn shot 30-for-65 (46 percent) from the field, making three more shots than the Crimson Tide on five fewer attempts.

"We've got to get their shooters, and even the guys who are capable of making shots...like [Tahaad] Pettiford, [Chad] Baker-Mazzara, [Miles] Kelly, [Denver] Jones, all those guys," Oats said. "Even if they're not, we can't let the other guys capable of making shots have free range of open shots either. Guarding the three-point line, our defensive rebounding would help in transition. The more we can get defensive rebounds and get out and transition [the better]."

The Tide had its best three-point shooting night of the season the game before with a 17 of 29 clip against Texas. A brilliant shooting night like this often translates into the next game, but that was not for Alabama as it shot 5-for-26 from deep against the Tigers, for a gruesome 19 percent.

"We've got to be able to get our shooters open," Oats said. "They're building out runs off the line. So can we set better screens? Can we get them free a little bit better in transition? So those are some of the main areas [I want to see improvement in]."

Of course, this is much easier said than done, especially against the No. 1-ranked team in the country. Auburn head coach Bruce Pearl and company hold a 27-3 record, including a 15-2 slate in SEC play. The Tigers' only losses this season have come against current-No. 2 Duke, current-No. 5 Florida and Auburn also fell to No. 22 Texas A&M on the road on Tuesday.

"They're good," Oats said. "I mean, you could play a really good basketball game and still lose to them, like they've beaten a lot of good teams that have played pretty good against them. So we're gonna have to do all of those things."

Nevertheless, Alabama's first round against Auburn wasn't a blowout by any means necessary as the Crimson shined in multiple facets that they've struggled throughout the season. But failing in these two stat categories will all but certainly be bad news when the final buzzer sounds.

"We're going to have to make free throws (26 of 35 in Game 1)," We didn't turn it over much (seven times) the first game––we're going to have to take care of the ball again. We can't let some stuff that we did well in the first game also go to the wayside while also emphasizing other stuff too."

The Crimson Tide aims to check off the boxes of the Nate Oats wish list at 1:30 p.m. CT on ESPN.

The Nate Wish List vs. Auburn

Quick transition defense
Get Auburn off the three-point line
Grab defensive rebounds
Get Alabama shooters open
Set better screens
Hit free throws
Take care of the ball

The Nate Wish List vs. Auburn

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