What Alabama coach Nate Oats said after 91-71 loss at No. 6 Tennessee

Everything head coach Nate Oats said after Alabama lost 91-71 to No. 6 Tennessee Saturday afternoon at Thompson-Boling Arena:

Opening Statement

“That was as dominating a performance somebody has put on us in a long time around here. They’re good. They’re tough. They’re physical. We weren’t ready for it. I didn’t do good job prepping them for their aggressiveness — 22 turnovers. They scored 23 points off our turnovers, gave up 17 second-chance points. When you give up 40 points off turnovers, second-chance points. Give them a ton of credit. 

“And Coach Barnes’ team always plays hard. They’re one of the best teams on defense this year. And they just dominated us in a big way. And we got to go back and figure out, get a little tougher, take care of the ball, little better. And obviously we weren’t great on defense together. So, disappointing. The thing is, it’s one game. I told our guys we lost up here last year and still won the league. We have to get a lot tougher. They exposed our (problems), some of our softness last year. 

“I thought after this game (last year) we did get a lot tougher and play a lot better after we lost up here last year. So hopefully that same thing happens. We’ll see if some guys show some character and come back ready to play a little tougher playing basketball. 

If effort was an issue for Alabama in this game

“They played harder than we did. So whenever the other team plays harder than you, the effort is an issue. Now, even if you play really hard, if you turn the ball over 22 times, I mean, you can play super hard, turn it over 22 times, you’re not winning the game. Not against a team like this. So I thought effort was a little bit of an issue, but not nearly. It’s just being soft with the ball, making bad decisions, not having a good enough plan is from that coach. I got do a better job getting these guys ready to go against their pressure, what we thought our plan was what wasn’t very good. So the effort was a little bit of the issue, but bigger issue was just to me, some toughness. Learn how to handle physicality, decision making with the ball in our hands. What wasn’t where it needed to be, I thought.”

What Alabama has to do to limit turnovers moving forward 

“The second chances, obviously, you got to box out, rebound. You got to have five guys that are willing to mix it up on the defensive glass. And we actually cleaned up the rebounding issue a little bit in the second half, but part of that was they just kept going free-throw line because we were just making some dumb fouls. And so they miss as many field goals in the second half to get off offensive rebounds. But as far as the turnovers go, we didn’t have an issue. I think we were averaging 12 or 13 turnovers, I think averaging 12 on the year going to this game. But conference play, they have been bad. Shoot, Mark’s our primary ball-handler, he had seven. He’s got to be better. We got to. He wasn’t very good against Missouri with the turnovers. We got to get guys outlets, to get it out when he’s facing pressure. Rylen (Griffen), who doesn’t handle a ton, had five (turnovers) tonight. We got to get those guys that aren’t necessarily handling that telling, hey, you know, we can’t have five turnovers. But it’s a combination of them being smarter, better with the ball, struggling with the ball, and guys giving them outlets when they’re getting trapped and pressured and the combination of the two. We got to clean up turnovers.”

How hard it is to replicate the defensive pressure from Tennessee’s Zakai Zeigler and Jahmai Mashack 

“It’s impossible because you don’t have anybody on your team that plays as hard as, as quick as Zeigler. So all of a sudden he’s up in you (and) you’re not used to it. We tried to tell the guys what it’s going to be like, tried to replicate it. Sometimes you got to experience it, (have it) happen. Now, it would be nice if we could not just, I thought, to get down 27 (points) at one point, you guys didn’t show a lot of fight. I mean, you can’t replicate what Zeigler does to you, but you can still show toughness. So yeah, it’s hard to replicate. It’s an old (Tennessee) team. It’s not just Zeigler. I mean he gets into you. He got out and picked us driving. They, shoot, if you don’t guard, you don’t play for Coach Barnes, period. So they got five guys on the floor, they’re going to play hard and guard all the time. And that’s why they’re good here. 

What Zeigler and Mashack did to make the game tough for Alabama’s Mark Sears

“They got up into him. They pressured him. They took us out. They blew up screens when he’s off ball. We couldn’t get them open off the ball very well. Their physicality bothers and then it is like they’re up into them and they’re denying passing lanes. Other guys aren’t getting open off screens and we struggle a little bit. So we got to help him have a better plan. But we just got to get tougher to be honest with you.”

How tough it was for Alabama’s forwards against Tennessee’s Jonas Aidoo

“That was an issue in the first half. He was a big problem. We were fortunate he got two fouls. We would’ve been down a whole lot more if they didn’t have three guys with two fouls in the first half. They couldn’t play for parts of the first half. I thought he was killing us. Like kind of come off those floppy actions, they’d curl a little bit. We’d try not to switch it. Sometimes we’re forced to switch, bury the guard … we didn’t do a good enough job getting the guy’s ready to play against (Tennessee). Now, (Dalton) Knecht’s been killing everybody and he probably would’ve had 35 if this would’ve been a close game. They would’ve been going to him a lot more. In fact, he had 25, most of the second half don’t count, let his foot off the gas … he’s had some second halves where he just had explosions here lately. So we held him below when he’s been averaging the last three games. We didn’t do a very good job on him either. He killed us when it mattered. So between him and Aidoo, shoot, Gainey played better than what he’s (been doing), have a guy come off the bench and shoot it like he shot it tonight. And he played great for them too.” 

Why Tennessee’s Jonas Aidoo was able to score 19

“They’re kind of coming off those pen downs and floppies, curling in and he buried it. Kind of had to help a little bit. Because the guard was, we were trying to chase the guards through them and then he would just kind of bury our bigs in there. He got deep post catches. They did a good job. We didn’t fight duck-ins very well, but some of that was probably needing to guard some of those actions a little better. We would, next time, plan to have our guys a little better prepared for some of his stuff.” 

Tennessee running Alabama players off of the 3-point line

“I mean the first thing they did is they didn’t get beat off the dribble very much. When they did, they were still right there on you where they weren’t clean looks and then just kick out. They were not collapsing the defense, spraying it, getting kick out threes like we usually do. So they weren’t helping out the shooters to begin with when they did have to get a rotation, which was rare. They just flew at you and they played hard play with effort. They fly around, so they fly at you. And you put it on the floor, the next guy’s coming. So they did a great job. Coach Barnes, (his), good game plan, the best job anybody’s done on us defensively. So we got to do a better job getting ready for the next.”