The Significant Distinction Between Nate Oats’s Previous Teams and This Year’s Alabama Team
There is truly nothing that can replicate or prepare players for high-leverage moments in the NCAA Tournament. The unpredictability, emotion and intensity are all things that make March Madness so gratifying and popular among sports fans.
To win the tournament, however, it takes a special group that can understand their identity and be comfortable in the face of adversity. Adversity has certainly been something the Alabama basketball team has become familiar with in the 2024-25 season, but finding an identity has been somewhat inconsistent at times for the group.
Sunday night’s 80-66 victory against the St. Mary’s Gaels was an example of the team leaning into a strength that makes them different from other Alabama teams under Nate Oats.
This year, the Crimson Tide does not have to rely on one player to run and ignite their offense for them to maintain efficiency. Against a tough Gaels squad, Alabama point guard, Mark Sears, again had trouble hitting shots. The senior shot 5/15 from the field, scoring just 12 points without hitting a three-pointer, but his role as a playmaker this season has made his impact come in other ways than scoring.
His improved passing has led to senior center, Cliff Omoruyi, finding a much stronger role as a lob-threat and roller in recent weeks. In the first two games of the tournament, he is shooting 13/15 from the field, and his emergence has been evident in many cases in the past month.
Grant Nelson has also accepted a role that has made him maybe the Crimson Tide’s most important player. He has accepted more of a physical role on offense, inviting contact, aggressively driving, cutting and drawing fouls. When he is on the floor, Alabama has become a much tougher team defensively and his aggressiveness on offense keeps the floor balanced with more space for the guards.
The 80 points the Crimson Tide scored on Sunday was a number the Gaels have not given up in the past 105 games. Even against the slow pace with a poor shooting night from their best player, Alabama was able to still shoot over 50-percent from the field and 40-percent from three. Six players scored in double figures, with Chris Youngblood scoring a team-high 13.
A phrase Alabama softball coach, Patrick Murphy, often uses, ‘mudita,’ is a word Coach Oats embedded on the team during last year’s tournament run. The word is a Buddhist term defined as the vicarious joy in other people’s success, and it is something Oats preaches to his team and referenced after Sunday’s game.
This year’s group leaning into that practice could be the x-factor in what sparks another deep tournament run past next weekend.