Oats: Alabama has no 'margin for error' entering game at LSU

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – The Alabama men’s basketball team doesn’t typically go live in practice the day after a midweek game. But following its 99-81 loss at Auburn, the Crimson Tide went full speed in its practice gym on Thursday night before another session Friday morning.

“I thought they were both pretty good,” said Alabama head coach Nate Oats.

Alabama (16-7, 8-2 SEC) remains in a four-way tie for first place in the SEC standings with eight regular-season games remaining, but the Crimson Tide had a chance to separate itself from its in-state rival on Wednesday at Auburn. Now entering a road game at LSU on Saturday, Feb. 10, Oats views the trip to Baton Rouge as “a big game” for No. 16 Alabama.

“We’re still in first place, but we don’t have any margin for error at this point,” Oats said. “This game on the road has become big for us to stay in the race. To try to win this thing, we’ve got to go on the road and get some tough wins. 

“LSU is a markedly improved team. Shoot, they’re playing well. They’re not really afraid of playing decent teams. They’ve played a number of top-25 teams. They beat Ole Miss when they were ranked in the top 25. They’re 3-1 in the SEC at home. So they’re playing well at home, and we’ve got our work cut out for us.”

Oats wasn’t happy with Alabama’s effort on the Plains.

Not only did the Tide lose to its rival and allow the Tigers to pull even in the SEC standings, but Auburn also finished with 25 more blue-collar points than Alabama, 96.5-71.5, Oats said.

So how does Oats get his players to play harder before traveling to LSU? 

“You either want to win or you don’t,” Oats said. “If you want to win, you play hard. You give max effort on D. If other stuff motivates you, you’re not going to play hard. We’ve seen it enough where we don’t play hard, we don’t give ourselves a chance to win. We’ve also seen it when we play hard that we’re one of the best teams in the country. 

Oats continued by providing examples of the effort he wants to see, “When we turned up our defense against Georgia in the second half, you see what we’re capable of. When we play defense like we did against Mississippi State at home, you see what we’re capable of. 

“There’s not a whole lot of motivating as a coach you can do. There’s a whole lot of self-reflection, I think, as a player. Like, ‘How bad do I want to win? What do I want to be known for? Am I a competitor? Am I a winner? Or am I just a really talented basketball player?’ We’ll see her for the last month where our guys are at.”

Oats has preached a lot of the same messages throughout the year, particularly when it comes to playing better defense. But it takes more than the head coach to motivate a team to rebound from a road loss before leaving Tuscaloosa again three days later. And Oats has heard some of Alabama’s leaders use their voices following a disappointing loss Wednesday.

“They’re getting a little bit more vocal as it gets closer to the end and they see the end nearing and we’re running out of time to fix this,” Oats said. “I’m trying to get them to talk more, me ask more questions than make statements to get their opinion. ‘What’s wrong here? What do we got to do to fix it? Why?’ 

“After the game, we had a decent amount of guys speak up in the locker room at Auburn. The next day in film, we had a decent amount of guys speak up.”

Alabama will take on LSU tomorrow in Baton Rouge, La. Tip-off is at 11 a.m. CT on ESPN.

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