Alabama Basketball: Charlie Henry subbed for Nate Oats in Tide win

Alabama Basketball has a propensity for making games hard for themselves. They did it again Wednesday night in Tuscaloosa and lost Nate Oats in the process. After a second technical within a minute, Oats had to exit with over eight minutes left in the second half.

Stepping up for the Crimson Tide was assistant Charlie Henry. Oats and Henry go way back. Henry was an assistant for Oats at Romulus High School in Michigan and also an assistant at Iowa State and with the Chicago Bulls. Henry was the head coach for the Windy City Bulls in the G League. He came back to college coaching when Nate Oats made the move from Buffalo to Tuscaloosa.

Following two made free throws by Iverson Molinar, after the second Oats’ technical, the Bulldogs led 60-57. Less than a minute later, State had a seven-point lead at 64-57. Alabama responded with an 18-2 run to lead 75-66 with 57 seconds left to play. The final was 80-75 Crimson Tide.

After the game, Nate Oats said,

"I screwed up and didn’t handle the referees the way I should have. I’m proud of our guys for figuring out a way to win the game on another night we didn’t shoot well"

The Tide shot 44.4 percent for the game; a percentage aided by five Charles Bediako dunks. From outside the arc, Alabama was awful again, going 6-for-30 for 20 percent.

Taking about what he did in the last eight minutes of the game, Oats said,

"It’s not the best feeling to be leaving the team out there when you’re the head coach. I was pretty irritated. I watched the game back in the training room with Jeff our administrator, cheering like a fan at that point."

If not for a strong game from Charles Bediako and an outstanding game from Jahvon Quinerly, the Tide would not have won.  Praising Quinerly, Oats said,

"This is the Jahvon (Quinerly) we’ve seen in practice. … If we can get him playing like this from here on out, I think we can have the best point guard in the country again."

Alabama Basketball  – Team and Player Highlights

• Jahvon Quinerly – 21 points; eight assists and two rebounds, with only two turnovers
• Charles Bediako – 6-for-7 from the floor; 15 points; five rebounds and six blocks
• Jaden Shackelford – 15 points; eight rebounds; four assists
• Darius Miles – 12 points; seven rebounds; one assist and three steals
• JD Davison – seven points; 10 rebounds, plus an assist and a steal
• The Bulldogs’ top scorer, Iverson Molinar is one of the SEC’s best. He went into the game shooting 51.9 percent in SEC play. Tide defenders harassed him into shooting 35 percent. He scored 22 points, but it took him 20 field goal attempts and eight free throws to score 22.

On a night the Tide wins, without its head coach for over eight minutes, the players and the Tide assistants are to be commended for their determination and toughness.

Nate Oats is not planning on more game ejections after what appeared to be an unintended one. But it did fire up his players and that fire just might last into Rupp Arena on Saturday.