Everything Nate Oats said after Alabama's Sweet 16 loss to Michigan

CHICAGO — No. 4-seed Alabama lost to No. 1-seed Michigan, 90-77, on Friday in the Sweet 16 round of the NCAA Tournament. Shortly after the Crimson Tide’s 2025-26 season ended, head coach Nate Oats spoke to reporters at the United Center. Here is everything Oats said.

NATE OATS: First off, have to give Michigan a lot of credit. There’s a reason they’re a 1 seed. They’re big, strong, athletic, physical. I thought our guys did a great job to be up two. Did a great job closing the first half.

But you know, the start of that second half wasn’t what we were looking for and they kind of imposed their will on us to start the second half.

Give Coach May and their players a lot of credit, but I’ll say this: these guys that I coach have been one of the more enjoyable groups I’ve ever coached in my life. We had no locker room issues, no — it’s tough. Talking about attitudes, these guys did a great job controlling that.

These three guys, along with other guys on our team’s leadership has been great all year. I love these guys.

It’s disappointing to win — I’m sorry. It’s disappointing to lose, but the most disappointing thing about tonight is I don’t get to coach these guys anymore. I think Michigan is a great team. I got a lot of respect for Dusty, and I wish them well moving on, but the saddest thing about tonight is I don’t get to coach this group again.

The adversity that they faced and the response to adversity and how they’ve handled things, I’m going to be using these guys as examples of how to do things the right way for a long time in my coaching career.

It’s just sad it comes to an end, but we ran into a buzz saw the second half. We couldn’t rebound with them. We lost the glass by 12 in the second half. We gave up 5-0 boards the first three possessions the second half. We chart the blue collar stuff.

The first media timeout it was 30-11 in the blue collar points. The second half total was 61-32 them. They kind of just destroyed us on the efforts, toughness in the second half.

Part of that is their size and physicality. You look at their starting three, four, and five, they double us up on the glass. From our starting three, four, and fives, 26-13, our leading rebounder was a point guard in Philon.

We knew we were going to have to rebound with them and we did in the second half. We were only losing it by one, and we were up two. Then we came out in the second half, and Michigan just seemed like they imposed their will on us.

Then with their physicality, their switches, the physicality of how they defended us in the second half, steering the screens, we didn’t get as good of threes off.

We only shoot 5 of 23 in the second half. I think our first three threes of the second half get blocked.

So we go from great offense scoring 49 in the first half to they really clamped us up there, lowest scoring half this season, our second half scoring tonight. Tough way to go out, but I didn’t think — I thought our guys kept fighting all the way to the end.

I have a lot of respect on the efforts stuff. We just kind of got out-toughed and out-physicaled there in the beginning of the second half.

Q. Nate, college basketball in a super-sized era, how much does this roster have to change in order to kind of get to that tier, or do you view this as kind of, hey, we had a lot of adversity this year, we had a bad draw, and had to play a really good team in the Sweet 16?

NATE OATS: We know we got to change a little bit. I mean, some of the adversity was Keitenn Bristol with the injuries. When we played up here the first time against Illinois, he kind of — might have been the MVP of the game. He would have changed some things about the lineup.

Collins’ big body; hasn’t been able to play since the beginning of the year because of a heart condition. So you know, we knew we were undersized. We were a little light in some of the spots, particularly our four spot.

Sherrell has done an unbelievable job manning the five spot, but when you look at our four spot, combined for zero rebounds in the second half, and we needed rebounds. So, you know, it was tough.

Again, they’re a little undersized. Both those guys are a little more three and four, so we know we got to get bigger. Some of it was some injuries and stuff that happened. You know, when we saw the opportunity, you know, to bring some size on after all the adversity we went through after Nnaji was declared eligible and most people, including ourselves, thought, you know, if they’re going to declare Nnaji eligible, that Benny (indiscernible) would be eligible, and had one judge that thought so. He definitely would have helped the situation with the rebounding.

So we tried to kind of shore up the Bristol-Collins adversity, injuries, with Charles, and we would not have gotten outrebounded by 13 tonight had we been able to continue to play him, because him and Sherrell would have played together. They both rebound. It wasn’t meant to be. We had something else in store for us.

Our guys handled the adversity with the lineup well. I couldn’t be more proud of a group. I thought Taylor really turned — not that his attitude was ever bad, but a little defeatist. He just turned it around. He attacked the end of the season. Was great for us.

I think London learned to be a lot tougher and make tough plays. Amari having to play at the four a lot. He’s really a point guard, but whatever the team needs to do to win, he did it.

It showed a lot about the guys’ character when they were thrust into roles that we didn’t envision at the beginning of the year.

Q. Nate, you said this is one of your most enjoyable coaching jobs, but do you think it was one of your best coaching jobs?

NATE OATS: I don’t know. That’s for you guys to judge. I enjoyed the group. I’m trying to squeeze every last little bit I can out of every group I coach. I would have liked to have done it a little better. You know, maybe my points of emphasis in the first half — or at the halftime should have been better. Maybe another timeout in the second. I don’t know.

You can second guess yourself a lot when things don’t go the way — you know, we got outscored quite a bit there in the second half by 15. Look, we did — as a staff and as a program, we did a great job, and honestly player-led teams are way better than coach-led teams, and if you just listen to these three guys before you guys let them go, I mean, what kind of more mature answers do you get out of a group ever?

I don’t really think it’s a great job by myself. I think it’s an incredible job by the leadership on the team to keep us through the adversity that we face. I was just happy to be a part of a group like this. I mean, shoot, listen to what they just said. Listen to what they’re talking about. It’s mature beyond years for what really matters in life.

When you’re about the right stuff and your focus is on stuff that matters for the long-term, for eternity, like these guys are talking about, the short-term takes care of itself a lot of times, and they did an unbelievable job holding the group together through all the adversity. Was it the best coaching job by me? I’m not one to judge that.

Was it the best leadership by a group of guys that I’ve ever had? Yeah, and you can tell by listening to their answers that they just had.

I was getting goosebumps listening to Trelly and Houston. Baron was great. His leadership came a long ways. You heard what they said. How many groups do you hear talking about stuff that they just talked about?

Q. Your team was 10 out of 10 at the free-throw line at halftime, but only shot four free-throws in the second half. Did you want to see guys go to the rim more, or were there too many blocked shots in there?

NATE OATS: I mean, look, one of our big points of emphasis was our rim decisions. We wanted — Aiden Sherrell is a great shooter for a five man. We wanted to get their fives pulled out.

They end up with five blocks. I don’t know — I can’t remember the other two, but I know three of them were against threes. I thought we did a pretty good job with the rim decisions. We probably needed to get downhill a little more the second half.

Our rim shots in the second half, I don’t know what they were. First half we were 5 of 9. For the game we were 9 of 15 at the rim. Yeah, we only got, was that, 4 of 6. We needed more. Six rim shots.

When you start to get a big deficit and we take as many threes as we did — obviously we didn’t take the right threes in the second half. You know, if you look at — what were we in the second half? 9 for 24 in the first half. Second half was 5 of 23. Yeah, we didn’t shoot very well. 21%.

Yeah, we should have got downhill, got to the rim more. Now, you can say all that. When Michigan has elite athletes with a lot of size, switching over the perimeter, getting physical, getting into us, steering us, pushing up, sometimes it’s a lot easier said than done. It would be nice if you could just push buttons, let’s get more rim shots. Well, you got to create more rim shots. You got to create good ones, and we didn’t do a good enough job creating those rim shots in the second half.

Q. I know Labaron said he still has a decision to make, but what has he meant to this program, especially the decision to come back this year after the feedback he got from the NBA last year?

NATE OATS: Yeah, he said he’s got a decision to make. I don’t really think he’s got much of a decision. He’s one of the best players in college basketball. He came back to do what he did to play his way up into the lottery. From everything I’m hearing, that’s what he did.

So I made a smart decision. You know what, we need to recruit players that make smart financial decisions in the long-term. We get guys that want to be NBA players. We’ve done a better job improving guys’ draft stock than anybody in the country has done since we’ve been here.

I’ve got assistants we hire from the NBA. Coach Fleming did an unbelievable job with our offense. Coach Adams. Both those guys are NBA guys. Done a great job with our defense. They teach these guys how to play NBA style, from an NBA team.

Labaron comes back. He was late first, early second, whatever he was going to be last year. He should go in the lottery. We’ll have to see how it all plays out. He made himself a lot of money this year in the long run.

When guys come here, Amari Allen, on no draft boards. He’s on every draft board now, it seems like. He’s going to have to make a decision. We’ll get feedback and see what it looks like.

But to get back to your question, Labaron has been a kid from Alabama that came in I think the third highest scoring season in Alabama history; pretty impressive. He was about the right stuff. He really led the team like he needed to. Just super happy for him. Proud of him. Came back; was about the right stuff; did a great job leading us.

He obviously can score at a high level. I think he came back and did what — he said he came back to, number one, win a national championship. We came up short. Wasn’t meant to be, but two, to improve his draft stock and learn how to be a better leader, and he definitely did those two at a high level.

He had good motives to come back and he helped continue to keep this program at a level. Since we’ve been here, I think Houston is the only team to make more Sweet 16s than we have. I think we’ve been in four. Or, no, four straight and five total out of the six years. We’ve just been six NCAA tournaments. Since we’ve been here we’ve been five out of the six. Labaron kept us there. Made an Elite Eight last year. Up until this year we were the only team that played in the Final Four and Elite Eight. Two years before this year, he helped get us to the Elite Eight. Through all the adversity we had, for him to help lead us to where we got, pretty incredible season by him.

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