Alabama basketball beats UNC and Nate Oats praises him

Alabama basketball is getting pretty good at beating North Carolina.

Six players from Nate Oats’ hotly contested team finished in double figures and the Crimson Tide defeated the Tar Heels 94-79 in the SEC-ACC Challenge on Wednesday night in Chapel Hill.

It was Alabama’s third straight win since November 2022 against UNC, which the Crimson Tide also defeated in the Sweet 16 of last season’s NCAA Tournament. Unlike that late night in March in Los Angeles, this time it wasn’t close.

Alabama (7-2 overall) led 43-34 at halftime and went on a 9-0 run shortly after halftime. The Crimson Tide led by as many as 18 points in the final 10 minutes at the Dean Dome after Houston Mallette drained a three-pointer to give Alabama a 70-52 lead.

Mallette, a transfer from Pepperdine, had planned to redshirt this season. That changed after Latrell Wrightsell suffered a season-ending Achilles tendon injury against Oregon last Saturday.

Mark Sears led the Tide with 20 points against UNC (4-4). Alabama got 15 each from freshman Labaron Philon and Auburn transfer Aden Holloway, and Clifford Omoruyi and freshman Derrion Reed each had 11. Grant Nelson, who led Alabama’s Sweet 16 effort over the Tar Heels last season, finished with 10 points .

Opening remarks from Nate Oats after the 94-79 win over UNC

“I thought our guys showed a lot of toughness and resilience. We took a tough loss to Oregon and could have easily turned that loss into two, but I thought they got it right. Ready to play. I thought they executed the defensive game plan out of transition areas, which is what they (UNC) do best. We didn’t do so well, especially in the first half. Other than that, they struggled in the half court and I thought our guys executed the game plan really well.

“I was really happy for these two guys: Houston (Mallette), selfless enough to take off his red shirt and come in. We were plus-12 in his nine minutes, shot two 3s, made some great defensive plays, grabbed some rebounds, had a tip that kept an offensive rebound alive, and I think we had a dunk on that play. It was great. Jarin (Stevenson) kind of settled in and made some big threes for us. I thought he did a great job with RJ Davis, who isn’t easy to guard. RJ is one of the best guards in the country and Jarin…just 19 years old, I thought he did an incredible job with RJ and Houston and Derrion Reid. We tried to add some size to Davis.

“He made his shots, which we kind of knew. I think he averaged 22 field goal attempts in the previous two games we played him. We had 24 tonight, but we wanted to make them as hard as possible. He hit some tough shots, but I thought our guys – who kept some size on him and made him shoot very hard shots – were pretty good. Coach Adams has really done a great job with the defensive game plan. We had control of the ball most of the time, but we didn’t do well against the press and towards the end of the first half. But in the next 34 to 35 minutes we probably did a better job of controlling the ball.”

Nate Oats on Alabama’s defensive efforts against North Carolina

Alabama held RJ Davis to 18 points on 7 of 24 shooting. Overall, the Tar Heels shot 41 percent from the field.

“Like I said, it wasn’t good in transition, especially in the first half. We had 24 transit possessions for them and they scored 29 of their points and went 1.21, and then when we had to go into a half court we had 39 points and 65 possessions for 0.6, which… that’s like the best defense ever Country guy stuff in the half court. The problem is that in the transition, so many of us have given up on what they do best. We just have to come back better.

“I thought once we got our defense set up, by and large the shots we were willing to give up were the shots they took and they were contested jumpers. I thought our bigs did a good job of being vertical at the rim. You know, you take away the transition, the second chance, our first shot in the half court was elite tonight. So we have to figure everything out. The transition needs to be better. The first shot was great and then we need to be able to return the ball a little better.”

Nate Oats talks about the importance of SEC dominance in the SEC-ACC Challenge

“It’s good for our league. I think we have a really good basketball league. It was pretty good when I got here. Auburn was coming off a Final Four. Obviously you had a great tradition. Kentucky looks great. I know they took the loss last night (against Clemson), but they’ve done a great job so far this year. There’s talent throughout the league, so I think playing in a really good league like the ACC that has a lot of great traditions and doing that – what’s the challenge right now? …Whatever it is, it’s great. So I think it’s obviously good because once you get to January, you’re just playing the SEC. So they have to establish themselves as an incredibly great league outside of the conference because then when we play all those teams, those games are a huge success.

“Even a bad road loss in the SEC won’t really hurt you in the eyes of the committee if your league is doing so well in the non-conference. So, great job by the league putting the emphasis on basketball. Really good coaches in our league and some really good athletes. It’s hard, night after night. This is a great environment, but we also have to go to some other great environments in the SEC and win. So it’s good that in an environment like this we can get a win and some confidence playing in a difficult road environment.”

Nate Oats updates Latrell Wrightsell after a season-ending injury

“Yeah, I texted him a little bit this afternoon. The operation was successful. They repaired his Achilles. His parents are in town with him. Our boys talked about him in the locker room after the game. He’s a great kid, a really good leader and we’ll surround him with lots of support and care as he recovers and wish him a speedy recovery.”

Nate Oats talks about the rise of the SEC in basketball

“It’s only my sixth year there, so the rise started before I got there, but it’s also gone up since I got there. I think as far as the things you mentioned, I think funding is a big thing. I think the league has decided it wants to be good at basketball. It doesn’t just have to be a soccer or baseball league. There are many good sports, and since basketball is one of the most popular sports in college athletics, they decided to put a lot of emphasis on it.

“They hired a guy just in charge of men’s basketball, Dan Leibovitz, I think he was the first. He’s in the Big East now and Garth Glissman has been incredible since he got there. So I think there is a focus on that from governments and across the league. I think they are putting in the resources they need and hiring great coaches who are able to recruit great talent. I believe we have more NBA players than any other league and we typically have more NBA players in almost every draft. So, we have athletes with great coaches, and if you don’t excel as a coach, you’re not going to win. So I think it’s just elevated.

“I was coming up in the league and our big rival was Auburn and they were coming off a Final Four. I got hired and then they made it to the Final Four a week after I was hired, so we had to try to keep up with them. It took us five years. We finally got there. We made our Final Four, but you have to go down the list…Tennessee and Rick Barnes has long been one of the best coaches in all of college basketball. (John) Calipari did an incredible job at Kentucky. Now he has an incredible squad at Arkansas. Kentucky, Auburn, just keep going down the list, and some of them were very dominant wins (Tuesday night). I thought Ole Miss had a really good win (86-63 over Louisville). It was good for our league. So I’m just glad we were able to help our league because last year we didn’t help the league with our SEC-ACC Challenge game.”

Nate Oats on whether he saw improvement in Alabama’s spacing on offense

“Much better. The ball losses occurred somewhat due to carelessness and then against the press, so the half-court distance was significantly better. I thought we had better shots. As you can see, we were able to achieve 12 3s and we would like to get more of them. But we were able to take better care of the ball, create space on the floor and hit a few threes. We also had some assists on some cuts because the distance was better. I thought tonight was a lot better than before.”

Nate Oats explains Labaron Philon’s success in real street environments like North Carolina and Purdue

“You know what, he’s a competitor. He practiced hard. You have to deserve to play well and he deserves to play well. He puts it into practice every day. He’s been bringing it with him since he went to trial in June. He has the ultimate confidence, but you can’t just instill confidence in a child. You have to earn this trust. You earn it by playing hard in practice and working on your game. I think he’s earned the confidence. He earned the playing time and he earned the right to play well. And he goes into these games not being afraid at all and he brings his best on both ends of the floor and he’s played really well in big games for us.”

Nate Oats on Aden Holloway’s starting shooting and how big he’ll be in Latrell Wrightsell’s absence

“I thought it was great. He’s obviously a bit upset with himself for losing the ball. His shot was incredible. I mean, I don’t want to say that’s what we expected, that he’s going 5 out of 9 every game, but we’ve seen him shoot like that in practice for a long time, so we know what he’s capable of with the ball shoot. He took care of the ball. I think the press has unsettled him a little and he’s a little upset with himself, so we’ll sort that out.

“But the shooting was huge because Wrightsell was our best shooter all year, so we need someone to step up and make some threes. So he hit five of our 12 threes and I thought the minutes he gave us were great. We’ll get him a little better in defense and better in ball control going forward.”

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