Nate Oats is always brutally honest when he talks to the media. Sometimes, that can land him in hot water. And sometimes, it can lead to providing unnecessary bulletin board material for the opponent.
And that's what happened with his comments this week on Vanderbilt, which the Commodores took personally and used as added motivation in their 96-90 win over Alabama on Wednesday night.
Oats' comments were taken a bit out of context. That happened because only a snippet of the comments was seen on social media.
Vanderbilt's players ran with this quote:
Alabama basketball's Nate Oats on Vanderbilt:
— Emilee Smarr (@emilee_smarr) January 6, 2026
"They haven't played any real, real good teams."
Still called the Commodores a good team by the metrics.@tuscaloosanews
The full quote:
"I mean, they haven't played any real, real good teams. They've played some high majors, and shoot, they've pulled them out. But they're good. I mean, the metrics say they're good."
Oats was highly complimentary of Vanderbilt in his press conference this week. But that one snippet was used as bulletin board material by Vanderbilt, as evidenced by comments made by 'Dores guard Tyler Tanner after the game on ESPN:
Vanderbilt guard Tyler Tanner to ESPN: "We heard what Nate Oats was saying before, that we didn't have a lot of good games before this -- we had some high-majors but no real good teams. We kind of took that personally.
— Mike Rodak (@mikerodak) January 8, 2026
"We knew how good of a team we were. We know how good we…
Nate Oats was honest, but may want to choose his words more carefully
What Oats said about Vanderbilt coming in was correct. The Commodores were undefeated coming in, but they hadn't played a single team inside the KenPom Top 25 until last night against Alabama. But, as Oats mentioned, they had been dominant according to the metrics.
The players can't control who they play, just how they play. And Vanderbilt has played at an extremely high level this season. At 15-0, Mark Byington's team ranks 5th overall in KenPom.
It speaks to the fight in Alabama that they stayed connected and only lost by six to such a quality opponent despite missing starting center Aiden Sherrell, and losing star guard Labaron Philon early in the second-half to full-body cramps. Philon sat out the final 16:06 of game time. He had scored 18 points in his 19 minutes before then.
It's not a loss that you are going to take much away from. It could prove to be consequential in the SEC Championship race, but it's too early to be thinking about that. For Alabama, the only worry right now is getting healthy, which it hasn't been all season.
And maybe Oats dialing back is honesty from 100% to 80%.