Alabama men’s basketball players are majoring in G.O.A.T. studies of late.
As the Crimson Tide has progressed through the season and moved up the rankings, coach Nate Oats is doing his best to combat any type of complacency or overlooking of opponents. So, he has invoked the wisdom of two of the greatest of all time in another sport: Nick Saban and Tom Brady.
The former Alabama football coach and the former Super-Bowl winning quarterback, respectively, have been featured in clips Oats has played for his team, ranked No. 1 in the coaches poll and No. 2 in the AP top 25.
That included a Saban clip on the Pat McAfee show.
“Coaches call him and ask him what he does different for a national championship,” Oats said. “Almost looks at them, like kind of a stupid question. You just had a big game last week we were getting ready for, a big game before. Just do what we do. Stay locked in. Obviously not letting rankings go to our head. That would be stupid.”
Meanwhile, Oats showed a clip of Brady talking about preparation, which is a key subject considering Alabama needs to take care of business against Texas on Tuesday before it plays against No. 1/2 Auburn on Saturday.
“We’ve got to prep for this Texas game like it’s the Auburn game,” Oats said. “You can’t all of a sudden turn up your preparation for a big game if you will. That’s asking for disaster. It’s showing your immaturity. We’ve got a lot of fifth-year seniors. We should not be immature. We should be prepping for Texas like we’re prepping for Auburn, like we’re prepping for an NCAA Tournament game.”
Alabama (20-3, 9-1 SEC) will face Auburn (21-2, 9-1) on Saturday (3 p.m., ESPN) at Coleman Coliseum. It’s the first of two regular-season matchups between these teams. The Crimson Tide will close the regular season with a matchup against Auburn on Saturday, March 8 (1 p.m., ESPN) at Neville Arena.
But to win the SEC title, Alabama also needs to win the games against other teams in the conference. Not just Auburn. Each game counts equally in the SEC standings. So there’s no room for letdowns.
“When we get to these so called ‘big games’ we’ve already been prepping for big games,” Oats said. “That’s what we’ve been trying to tell our guys. I hope they’re mature enough to understand that, and I think they are.”
Nick Kelly is an Alabama beat writer for AL.com and the Alabama Media Group. Follow him on X and Instagram.