{"id":84023,"date":"2025-02-23T14:23:46","date_gmt":"2025-02-23T20:23:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/nate-oats-reacts-to-setting-alabama-basketball-record-for-top-25-wins\/"},"modified":"2025-02-23T14:23:46","modified_gmt":"2025-02-23T20:23:46","slug":"nate-oats-reacts-to-setting-alabama-basketball-record-for-top-25-wins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/nate-oats-reacts-to-setting-alabama-basketball-record-for-top-25-wins\/","title":{"rendered":"Nate Oats reacts to setting Alabama basketball record for Top 25 wins"},"content":{"rendered":"

No. 4 Alabama<\/a><\/strong>\u2018s 96-83 win over No. 17 Kentucky<\/a><\/strong> on Saturday was historic for several reasons, especially for sixth-year head coach Nate Oats<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The victory was the Crimson Tide\u2019s eighth against an AP Top 25 opponent this season, setting a program record for most AP wins in a single season, and also marked Oats\u2019 26th career win over a ranked opponent since arriving in Tuscaloosa, surpassing legendary Alabama coach Wimp Sanderson<\/strong> for the program mark.<\/p>\n

\u201cHonestly, Wimp did a really good job here, but I\u2019m guessing the SEC is a lot better now, so there\u2019s a lot more opportunities to get Top 25 wins than he probably had,\u201d Oats said in his postgame press conference Saturday<\/a>. \u201cBut when they give you the opportunity and you take advantage of them and try to get it done. We don\u2019t have enough because we had a chance to get two more in the last two games before this and we didn\u2019t come up with them.\u201d <\/p>\n

As Oats mentioned, prior to Saturday\u2019s win over No. 17 Kentucky<\/strong>, the fourth-ranked Crimson Tide had dropped back-to-back games against No. 1 Auburn<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0(94-85) and No. 15 Missouri<\/a><\/strong> (110-98). Saturday\u2019s victory over the Wildcats improved Alabama\u2019s record against Top 25 teams to 8-4 on the season. <\/p>\n

Of course, it doesn\u2019t get any easier as the Tide close out the regular season against four Top 25 teams, beginning with Tuesday\u2019s home game against No. 21 Mississippi State<\/a><\/strong> (19-8, 7-7), which it already beat 88-84 on Jan. 29 in Starkville. Alabama then travels to face No. 6 Tennessee<\/a><\/strong> (22-5, 9-5) in Knoxville next Saturday before hosting No. 2 Florida<\/a><\/strong> (24-3, 11-3) on March 5 with a regular-season finale at No. 1 Auburn<\/strong> (25-2, 13-1) on March 8.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it does speak to the level of the SEC as a whole that now we have all these (Top 25) opportunities. I mean, every team we play the rest of the year is a Top 25 team, so I\u2019m guessing Wimp didn\u2019t have as many opportunities as we\u2019ve had,\u201d Oats continued. \u201cBut you also have to go win them, so a lot of credit to our guys here \u2014 Herb <\/strong>(Jones<\/strong>) is in the building tonight and today getting rehab on his shoulder, and Herb got it this thing going for us. \u2026 A lot of players that stepped up in big-time games throughout the years, and now a lot of opportunities to get Top 25 wins. So a combination of the two, it\u2019s a good time for basketball in the state of Alabama.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nate Oats compares final stretch of season to NCAA Tournament<\/h2>\n

Alabama<\/a><\/strong>\u2018s final stretch of the regular season may prove to be the toughest after drawing Top 25 matchups in each of their final seven games before postseason play.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know if anybody\u2019s played one, two and six in the three-game stretch anywhere in the country this year, let alone to close the year out,\u201d Oats\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0after the Kentucky win. \u201cBut we needed this one tonight. And we\u2019re not going to focus on Tennessee until we get through with Mississippi State. And we\u2019re not going to focus on Florida until we\u2019re through with Tennessee.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve just got to take it one at a time. The good thing with playing a schedule like this is you\u2019re not going to play three games in a row like that until you get to the Elite Eight, Final Four, championship game, if we\u2019re fortunate enough to get that far. So we\u2019re literally playing three teams that are going to be one or two seeds back to back to back, and Mississippi State\u2019s playing for a good seed in the NCAA Tournament, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Currently, the Crimson Tide is tied for second place in the SEC standing with Florida. Both sit two games back of Auburn for the top spot in the conference.<\/p>\n

\u201cOutside of maybe the SEC Tournament, we\u2019re not going to see three teams like this until maybe an Elite Eight, Final Four, if we\u2019re fortunate enough to get there,\u201d Oats said. \u201cSo at least we\u2019ll have some experience playing very good teams back to back to back.\u201d<\/p>\n

On3\u2019s Barkley Truax contributed to this report.<\/em><\/p>\n

The post Nate Oats reacts to setting Alabama basketball record for Top 25 wins<\/a> appeared first on On3<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

No. 4 Alabama\u2018s 96-83 win over No. 17 Kentucky on Saturday was historic for several…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-84023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84023"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84023\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}