Nate Oats: Alabama 'answered the bell' after Oklahoma loss

Coming off a loss to Oklahoma over the weekend in the SEC/Big 12 Challenge, coach Nate Oats laid down a challenge for his players. It’s safe to say Alabama ‘answered the bell’ after demolishing Vanderbilt 101-44 on Tuesday.

Oats explained how he challenged his team.

“This is a game where if we’re going to try to be the tougher team, we kind of told our guys that nationally we were being questioned as soft,” Oats said. “Any team with a decent big’s been able to go to work on us a little bit.”

That had to stop.

The Alabama coach made no bones about it, and he really questioned his players’ desire to get better.

“I told our guys, ‘Can we be good enough? Can we be tough enough on defense? Can we be good enough rebounding team to win if we go 3-of-30?’ I think we can, that’s the goal,” Oats said. “And I think we, for the most part, played pretty hard and locked into the defensive end tonight.”

It’s hard to argue with a 101-44 win, especially against a conference opponent.

Alabama answered the bell after Oklahoma loss

Locked in defensively, Alabama was able to hold Vanderbilt to just three makes from 3-point range on a whopping 30 attempts.

“They answered the bell after the Oklahoma game,” Oats said. “I thought it was a great way to respond. I respect Vanderbilt a lot, so it was kind of unfortunate for them that they were the team that followed up the Oklahoma game, but I told our guys, we’ve kind of shown who we are. I think we’re a tough, hard-nosed, blue-collar, gritty team. Vanderbilt’s tough. I mean we showed a little highlight film of Vanderbilt’s tough plays before the game.”

The message of the highlight reel film was simple. These guys are going to want it. Will you want it more?

Judging by the scoreboard…

“I think they answered the bell. They got the message,” Oats said. “They really coached each other over the last three days, to be honest with you. They’re a great group that kind of talked amongst themselves, ‘This is who we want to be, this is what we’ve got to do to get better.’ And they did just about all of it tonight. And we were obviously aided by good shooting night and they didn’t shoot it well. That happens, too. That’s why the margin of victory ended up as big as it was.”

Alabama will be back in action Saturday at LSU with a 4 p.m. ET tipoff and a broadcast set for ESPNU.