Alabama HC Nate Oats looks foolish after loss to Tennessee because of comments he made before the game
Alabama Crimson Tide head coach Nate Oats made some comments last week, ahead of his team's loss to the Tennessee Vols on Saturday night in Tuscaloosa, that look a little foolish in retrospect. Court storming has been a big topic in college sports over the last year. And thanks to an incident at the end […]
Alabama Crimson Tide head coach Nate Oats made some comments last week, ahead of his team's loss to the Tennessee Vols on Saturday night in Tuscaloosa, that look a little foolish in retrospect.
Court storming has been a big topic in college sports over the last year. And thanks to an incident at the end of the Duke/Wake Forest basketball game last weekend, it's a topic that received some extra attention this past week.
Oats was asked last week about court storming ahead of Alabama's game against a top five ranked Vols team. The Crimson Tide's game against Tennessee was easily the biggest game that's been played in Tuscaloosa this year.
For some reason, Oats went on and on about how Alabama doesn't storm the court because they expect to win big games.
"We don't storm the court here," said Oats on Friday. "We expect to win big games. We've won a lot of big games here. I actually love the fact that our fans are unbelievably great and give us a great environment during the game and then act like we've been there and done that after we beat — now we've beaten plenty of good teams in this building since I've been here. I like the way it's been here."
"Now, we've done a great job here of never storming the court," added Oats. "Like I said, Alabama sports in general expects to win big game. Football's won a bunch of national championships. They've got, what is it, five or six different sports that have won a national championships. We expect to win around here. Some other places that winning a big game doesn't happen very often and they feel like they need to celebrate."
Despite Oats' claims that Alabama wouldn't storm the court if they won a big game, security practiced protecting the court on Saturday before the game against Tennessee.
Oats looks a bit silly for going on a diatribe about not storming the court because the program expects to win big games before failing to win Alabama's biggest game of the year.
Maybe Oats should worry more about winning the game than what Alabama's fans are planning to do after the game.
Though ultimately, Oats was right — there was no court storming in Tuscaloosa on Saturday night. But that was thanks to Rick Barnes and the Vols and not because Alabama fans are used to winning big games.
