Alabama vs. UConn Matchup Preview

Alabama Head Coach, Nate Oats, previews matchup versus UConn plus confirms Latrell Wrightsell’s return to the Crimson Tide lineup on the “Green Light with Chris Long” podcast.

We share today’s episode of the hit sports and culture podcast “Green Light with Chris Long“, a production of Yote House Media, featuring Alabama Men’s Basketball Head Coach, Nate Oats who’s set to face off against UConn this weekend in the 2024 NCAA Men’s Final Four.

In a video interview, Coach Oats details Alabama’s uptempo offense and unique analytics strategy and how it affects their choices in the transfer portal.

He also previews their upcoming matchup against UConn and what it will take to dethrone the defending NCAA champions.

Coach Oats also gives an update on injured guard Latrell Wrightsell confirming that he will play in Saturday’s game.

Later, Oats responds to being called the “best-dressed” coach – admitting that he doesn’t think there is much competition.

EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS

• 1:35 – OATS REMEMBERS GOING TO HIS FIRST FINAL FOUR GAME, SITTING IN THE RAFTERS

“I remember when I got my first Final Four ticket. Somebody had one, but didn’t want to go…[I was] sitting way up in the rafters and now I’m gonna be down on the floor coaching trying to win a game. So it’s a little surreal. It’s come a long ways and I caught a lot of breaks in the last 11 years.”

• 2:45 – ON THE INFLUENCE OF ALABAMA’S ANALYTICS TEAM

“They help with in-game scouting reports, but they also help figure out [transfer] portal guys. It’s not just ranking them, it’s how do they fit with what you currently have? So [Mark] Sears, Rylan Griffen, and [Nick] Pringle were really the only three that came back, but we had assumed we had a couple other guys…

Like guard-wise, they targeted [Aaron] Estrada for us…We don’t go after a kid hard in the portal without checking with them, and having them run through their models to see how they mesh with the current players. We have the style of play…We rely on the analytics quite a bit around here.”

• 6:18 – OATS COMMENTS ON BEING CALLED THE BEST-DRESSED NCAA MEN’S BASKETBALL COACH

Oats: “When you said I was one of the best dressed, I was like, ‘Well, it’s not that hard anymore.’ I mean, the whole P.E. teacher thing –– these guys have taken it to another level. [They] just come in our P.E. teacher gear. First off, the whole COVID thing…It was very eerie…To me back to normal was, let’s put on what we wore before COVID. So, everybody was wearing the polo or quarter zip or whatever. I think we lost a game somewhere in that COVID year and I was like, ‘You know what, screw it, I’m going back to sport coat’…so I put it back on. We started winning a lot more. I haven’t taken it off since.”

• 9:26 – OATS SHARES HIS READ ON THE UCONN TEAM AHEAD OF THEIR FINAL FOUR MATCHUP

“If you look [at] their pace, numbers look slow, but they’re elite in transition. It’s just when they get in the half court, their sets take a long time. So they’re hard to guard. You gotta get back in transition and then you got to guard a bunch of really good [players]. That’s why [they’re] the best team in the country right now. This game is not gonna be, you know, at the Kentucky level where we’re both trying to fly up and down and shoot quick. We’re gonna try to make the pace a little faster. UConn will probably try to slow it down a little, but they still will run on you in transition …Like, I mean, some teams we play– Clemson for instance, that we just play like they don’t want to run at all. I mean, they’re really walking it up so [the UConn game] won’t be to that level, … or even [North] Carolina. I mean, [North] Carolina plays fast. You know, the [North] Carolina game is faster. So it’ll be somewhere between like Carolina and Kentucky and Clem[son].”

• 11:55 – ADVICE FROM OTHER COACHES AFTER THE SEC QUARTERFINALS LOSS AGAINST FLORIDA

Oats: “They were all like, ‘No, just burn that tape. Forget it. Don’t even show it. Move on. Sell them how you can make the run.’ So that’s what I did. Since then, we haven’t gone back to look. That’s the only game I haven’t shown one clip of any of it to our guys. Like no positive, negative, nothing, no teaching –– just forget it and move on. So that Florida game, we weren’t very good –– we moved on.”

• 13:10 – COACH OATS ANTICIPATES LATRELL WRIGHTSELL WILL PLAY ON SATURDAY

Oats: “I anticipate him playing. He practiced today for the first time in a couple of weeks. Based on how that goes – When you’re coming back from a head injury, you gotta have daily evaluations to see how everything’s at…If he doesn’t have any steps backwards, [he’s] gonna play Saturday…we couldn’t really play four guards because we only had three to play and now that we have four guards back, we can put four of them on the floor.”