Alabama Basketball: Nate Oats’ first major recruiting test comes in November

What happens in May or June will not define if Alabama basketball coach Nate Oats can attract elite talent to the Crimson Tide. That will be known in November.

When most Alabama Crimson Tide fans are laser-focused on a CFP run, Alabama basketball coach Nate oats will be focused elsewhere. When November rolls around, Nate Oats’ mind will not be on a Crimson Tide football field.

He will be preparing his team for a new season. Alabama basketball fans already know, as do the current Tide players, those preparations, especially the practices, will be intense. In the midst of that frenzy, Nate Oats will also be drilled down on one or two, maybe three elite prospects.

Nate Oats has already had recruiting successes as the Crimson Tide head coach. He held on to Avery’s Johnson’s class. He re-recruited John Petty and Kira Lewis and pulled them back from the transfer portal. Oats also added key ingredients for the 2019-20 roster, transfer point guard Beetle Bolden and JUCO All-American, James Rojas.

A few detractors claim Oats has had some misses as well. 5-Star phenom, Trendon Watford chose LSU over an Alabama basketball career. Too much time and attention was spent on Watford – a point many Alabama basketball fans agreed upon before he chose LSU. But Nate Oats did not lose him. Oats was so late to the recruitment of Watford, the new Tide coach had little chance to build a relationship.

The most recent supposed miss was not holding on to Tevin Mack. Many think Mack would have been a good fit in Oats’ offense. Even if Mack had been, there was the matter of defense, to which Tevin never seemed fully committed.

Bottom line, Oats lost nothing in the Watford and Mack situations. Does that mean, the current roster is strong enough to make next year’s NCAA Tournament field? That remains to be seen. Even if it is, Oats should not be expected to compete with the upper tier of the SEC in one season.

He will need more talent to accomplish that and the time to entice it. And he will have to do it when both Tennessee and Auburn can currently recruit some Kentucky-level talent. Check out a recent tweet from a top recruit.

https://twitter.com/TiptonEdits/status/1129908939733307393?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1129908939733307393&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zagsblog.com%2F2019%2F05%2F19%2Fbrandon-boston-cuts-to-four-schools%2F

The increasingly competitive SEC means Oats would be best served by nailing down an elite player or two before the 2019-20 season begins. The early NCAA college basketball signing period is Nov. 13-20. It will not be easy to sign a Top 50 or even Top 100 player before Oats’ Alabama team has ever played a game. But if Nate Oats can do it, the SEC best watch out for what is coming in Tuscaloosa.

Oats’ 2020-21 roster could get a boost if Villanova transfer Jahvon Quinerly chooses the Crimson Tide over Pitt. We will know soon.