Nate Oats reveals troubling information about 2021-22 Alabama team
Following Alabama’s 78-64 upset loss against Notre Dame, head coach Nate Oats addressed the media on a number of different topics about his team. From Jahvon Quinerly’s health concerns to subtle shots at the SEC, one answer stood out with an alarming fact about his 2021-22 roster.
When Alabama’s coaching staff offered a voluntary shootaround on Thursday night, just hours before the NCAA Tournament game, only one player showed up. To make matters worse, at a Friday morning shootaround, three players made their way to the gym.
After subtly dropping the fact Quinerly was the only player in attendance last night, AL.com’s Mike Rodak pressed him further on what he meant.
“We had one this morning,” Oats said about the voluntary shootarounds. “We had three guys come this morning. He was the one last night.”
On a team which features eight former Herb Jones teammates, that fact probably surprises most fans. The leadership within Alabama’s locker room was called into question multiple times this season from the benching of Jahvon Quinerly, to the suspension of Darius Miles, and the mysterious one-game absence of freshman Jusaun Holt.
Nate Oats even provided candid responses earlier this season about how his staff struggled to motivate his Alabama team. That inability eventually caught up to Alabama as the Crimson Tide lost its final four games and failed to win in March.
To make matters worse, two of the losses came against non-NCAA Tournament teams in the SEC. Alabama has not beaten an NCAA Tournament opponent since Feb. 12 against Arkansas and currently sits at 9-11 since the calendar turned to 2022.
Nate Oats on Alabama players
All season, Nate Oats has alluded to his desire to find what motivates his team. However, as the clock ran down on Alabama’s season, the answer seemed to remain a mystery.
“The end’s going to come quick if this is the effort we get,” Oats said after the Texas A&M loss. “We’re as good as our effort is, and it would be really disappointing for some of these guys to end their career here at Alabama with these types of losses. … We can’t play hard for – it’d be nice if they’d platy hard for each other – and I don’t know what motivates some of them.
“The message was that we’ve got to figure out what we’ve got to do to get this team playing hard every night. As the head coach, that’s on me. I’ve got to figure out a better way to motivate them to play hard because our effort has been really inconsistent at times this year.”
In early March, Oats again attempted to find his team’s identity while using junior college transfer James Rojas as an example.
“If you’re going to get stops late in a big game, you’ve got to have some guys that are willing to talk and make tough plays,” said Oats. “I mean, he’s proven that he’s willing to take charges. It’s not true of everybody on our team.”