Nate Oats predicts Illinois to be a national championship contender after showdown in Chicago

In the second game of an exciting Wednesday night doubleheader on FOX, No. 11 Alabama held off No. 8 Illinois 90-86 in the United Center. The Crimson Tide trailed 36-32 with just over a minute remaining in the first half, but outscored the Illini 58-50 over the remainder of the game to secure another top-15 ranked victory.

Alabama shot a whopping 36 three-pointers, finding pay dirt on 13 of them (36%). Superstar guard Labaron Philon Jr. was the deciding factor in the win down the stretch, scoring nine points from the 2:24 mark to the 0:46 mark in the second half.

Following the massive win for Nate Oats‘ program, he spoke highly of Brad Underwood and Illinois. He claimed that the Illini will be in the mix to compete for a National Championship.

“That’s a really good team we just played,” Oats said. “I mean, they’re going to be competing for a national championship, in my opinion. They’re going to be in the mix. They’re talented. They’ve got depth. They’re hard to keep off the glass. I thought our guys fought, and we still got out-rebounded, but we fought a lot harder than we did against Purdue.”

After picking up a massive victory in front of what was a heavy pro-Illinois crowd, the Crimson Tide will now head to the Players Era Festival. There, they have guaranteed games against No. 13 Gonzaga and UNLV, along with a third game against an opponent TBD. They will then face Clemson in the ACC-SEC Challenge, along with No. 4 Arizona prior to kicking off SEC play against No. 12 Kentucky on Jan. 3.

In order to break through that glass ceiling and finally reach the National Championship Game, Oats has crafted out an extremely difficult non-conference schedule for his program. Much like Alabama, Illinois has strong games upcoming as well. They will face No. 3 UConn, No. 20 Tennessee, and Missouri in the coming weeks.

“I just, I think they’re pretty good,” Oats continued about Illinois. “And they didn’t play bad tonight, they just missed a bunch of free throws. Shoot, if they make their free throws, they’ll probably win.”

Illinois certainly did play well, but it was less than stellar from the free-throw stripe. It made just 13-22 free throw attempts, including a brutal 2-5 mark for star guard Andrej Stojakovic. However, the season is long and teams learn much more about themselves in games like these than buy-games against mid-major opponents.

With Chicago set to host Sweet Sixteen and Elite Eight games in March, a potential Illinois–Alabama rematch in the United Center could certainly be a possibility.