Alabama Basketball: Nate Oats is the Hero we need now

In Alabama, football is king. Alabama basketball has tried to emulate football for years, and it hasn’t worked. Nate Oats looks to be the guy to finally change that.

At Alabama, nearly every sport lives in the shadow of the football program. And why not? It’s arguably the most successful college football program in the history of Division I. The problem is that the other sports struggle to find an identity of their own. The basketball program is no exception. Alabama basketball has, for a long time it seems, tried to model itself after the football program.

In Alabama, we tend to be a bit stubborn especially when it comes to our beloved Crimson Tide. If it works for the football team it should work for the other sports too.

And, what has worked for the football team? A suffocating defense paired with a strong running game and controlling the time of possession. That is how we have won nearly every national championship that we have.

On the football field, it is effective. You can frustrate even the most high-powered offenses when they can’t even get on the field. It’s simply demoralizing to watch a team essentially tell you what they are going to do, and you still can’t stop them.

Throughout the past 10 years, Alabama basketball has tried to translate that same formula to the court. Coaches have been hired who taught defense and ball possession as the keys to winning games. The problem is, basketball is not football.

The historic motto of “defense wins championships” doesn’t really hold true in basketball. The name of the game is scoring points. With the shot clock and rules limiting a team’s ability to play defense, you must be able to score the ball. It’s as simple as that.

It’s not that defense is meaningless, but basketball has become more about long-range shooting and fast-paced offense. If you don’t believe that just go and watch any of the Houston Rockets, Golden State Warriors, or Milwaukee Bucks games.

Nate Oats is the embodiment of the present and future of basketball. He is the coach we need at Alabama to put the program on the right path. His Buffalo teams have all been built around offense. The 2018-19 Buffalo Bulls were the 6th best scoring team in the nation with 84.4 points per game. In the 4 seasons with Nate Oats as head coach Buffalo averaged 77.4, 77.7, 84.6, and 84.4 points per game.

Since the 2009-10 season (Anthony Grant’s first season at Alabama) the best Alabama basketball scoring season has been 72.3 in 2017-18. The Crimson Tide has only topped 70 points per game TWICE in that same span. Alabama basketball hasn’t scored over 80 points per game since the 1986-87 season.

And in case you think that Nate Oats just believes in scoring and doesn’t care about playing defense, just check out this next stat. The 2018-19 Bulls allowed only 70.8 points per game while Alabama allowed 71.6 under the defensive-minded Avery Johnson.

Nate Oats has been working at a fever pitch in order to re-shape Alabama basketball in his image before the start of his first season. He’s only had a little over a month yet, he has retained key players that contemplated transferring and recruited new players that better fit his style of basketball.

I don’t know what the first season of Alabama basketball will look like under Nate Oats. It has the feel of a boom or bust type season for me. But, I know that the future of Alabama basketball has a much brighter outlook with Oats at the helm.