Alabama coach Nate Oats has elevated the Crimson Tide’s program to one of the SEC’s best in his five seasons as head coach. It was a pretty simple evaluation for Oats after No. 6 Tennessee dismantled his team 91-71 in Knoxville on Saturday afternoon.
“That was as dominating a performance somebody has put on us in a long time around here,” Oats said to open his postgame press conference Saturday.
Oats probably didn’t know how true those words were when he said them. Tennessee’s blowout win marked just the second 20-plus point loss Alabama has suffered under Oats. The Vols wire-to-wire lead led to Alabama’s most lopsided loss in SEC play since they fell by 21 points at Auburn in February 2019— the year before Oats became head coach.
The worst part for Alabama, and perhaps the most encouraging for Tennessee, is that the final deficit could have been even greater. Tennessee led by 27 in the game’s final six minutes before a late Alabama push made it a 20-point difference.
“They’re good. They’re tough. They’re physical,” Oats said of Tennessee. “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.
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.”
Similarly to last season’s game in Knoxville, the Vols’ ball pressure was too much for Alabama’s backcourt. The Crimson Tide’s 22 turnovers were a season-high while star point guard Mark Sears’ seven turnovers were the most of his Alabama career.
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Tennessee’s Zakai Zeigler and Jahmai Mashack made life extremely difficult for Alabama’s guard and combined for six steals int he blowout victory.
“It’s impossible (to replicate in practice) because you don’t have anybody on your team that plays as hard as, as quick as Zeigler,” Oats said. “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. … 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.”
Tennessee totaled its second highest scoring total of the season thanks to big performances from Jonas Aidoo and Dalton Knecht. Alabama’s front line had no answers for Aidoo who went for 19 points on nine-of-14 shooting from the field.
Vols’ coach Rick Barnes thought Alabama had a good plan for Dalton Knecht, who totaled 25 points on 20 shots, but Oats was less impressed with his team’s defense and believed Knecht would have had an even bigger night if the game was more competitive.
“(Dalton) Knecht’s been killing everybody and he probably would’ve had 35 if this would’ve been a close game,” Oats said. “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 what 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.”
Alabama will get another shot at Tennessee on its home court later this season. The Crimson Tide host the Vols at Coleman Coliseum on Saturday, March 2— the third to last game of the regular season.
