The Alabama Crimson Tide road win over the Oklahoma Sooners came from what Nate Oats did - at halftime. After the game, Labaron Philon was asked about Oats during halftime. Philon said, "I can't tell you the full story 'cause I gotta keep it appropriate for the camera, but he got on us. He came in, threw his suit off. He was red hot."
A coach's rant when a team is down is pretty standard stuff. Nate Oats had plenty of reasons to be dissatisfied with his team. The most immediate was that the Sooners closed the first half on an 11-point run to make the halftime score, 44-33 in favor of OU.
Getting after players for poor performance is a necessary coaching tool. Sometimes it has no effect. On Saturday, Nate Oats' fire produced dramatic results. The Crimson Tide opened the second half with a 12-point run to take a 1-point lead over Oklahoma.
The Sooners' first-half lead perhaps seduced them to overconfidence. Or maybe the team that played the first two and a half minutes of the second period was a different Alabama team, mentally. The result was a game that turned into a war and remained so until the end. The Crimson Tide held on to an 83-81 win after the Sooners missed a last-second three-point attempt to win.
Nate Oats also took some blame for the Tide's first-half performance: "I got to do a better job as a coach of getting these guys motivated to give us better effort for 40 minutes."
Multiple Alabama Crimson Tide Struggles
Alabama won despite three-point shooting percentage of 30% and despite shooting 58% at the foul line. The leading scorer for Alabama was Labaron Phioln with 23 points. He also had five rebounds and four assists. Aiden Sherrell scored 21 points and led the team in rebounds with nine. Amari Allen had 12 points and eight rebounds. Houston Mallette scored 12 points and had six rebounds.
Next up for the now 13-5 Alabama Crimson Tide is a Saturday game in Tuscaloosa against the Tennessee Vols.