Nate Oats challenges Alabama players on their toughness after Purdue loss

Alabama is halfway through one of the more difficult stretches of scheduling that any team will play this season, with four straight games in the non-conference against teams in the Preseason Top 25 and all of whom are now in the Top 20 of the AP Poll. That’s going to teach the Tide a lot about themselves, with Nate Oats thinking something has already been exposed about his team after last night’s loss in Tuscaloosa.

Following the 87-80 loss for No. 8 Alabama to No. 2 Purdue on Thursday night, Oats was asked about the scheduling of all those opponents. He said No. 5 St. John’s was a late addition to the Crimson Tide’s slate, but, regardless, they’re still only two games into the four, having now split their games against St. John’s and Purdue. Alabama will still play No. 14 Illinois next week and No. 19 Gonzaga the week after that.

“It’s kind of just the way it worked out. We pretty much had the schedule done, and tacked the St. John’s game on. It was the only day open in The Garden. But, I don’t mind it,” Oats said. “I mean, shoot, if you’re trying to win at a high level in the NCAA Tournament, you’re going to have to go back-to-back on two really good teams. And, shoot, we got another really good one – you know, Illinois looked great against Texas Tech, last night was it, yeah. Shoot, they’re bigger than Purdue almost, I think.

“So, if we don’t get our rebounding at Illinois, we’re not going to be able to win that game either. So, you know. And then we’ve got Gonzaga after that. Gonzaga looked pretty good against Creighton the other night. So, we got four really good games in a row. We will find out what we’re good at, what we got to improve at.”

Oats hinted at that main issue a lot, though, for Alabama. The Boilermakers came on the road last night and nearly doubled up the Crimson Tide on the glass, winning the boards overall at 52-28 by getting 12 more rebounds on defense and a total of 19 offensive rebounds, which resulted in 16 second chance points. That effort, more than anything else, is his biggest concern to this point, with it leading him to eventually question his team’s toughness for this season by the end of it after referencing the rebounding differential multiple times.

“Tonight? You know, we’ve been sounding the alarm on the rebounding deal. We got exposed tonight,” Oats said. “Our guys are going to have to decide whether they want to have a good season or whether they’re just going to get out-toughed every game the rest of the year.”

In reality, Alabama is just fine, having won one and lost one in a pair of Top 10 matchups against the Red Storm and Boilermakers to open the season in November. But, with the Tide still to play two more in the Top 20 in the Fighting Illini and Bulldogs — both of who are among the nation’s best in rebounding and rebounding margin — Oats says his team better be learning and learning fast from this difficult schedule in front of them.