2/12/23 Auburn Articles

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Alabama's Nate Oats sends parting shot to Auburn following his team's win at Neville Arena

Taylor Jones

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Alabama head basketball coach Nate Oats has not shied away from showing emotion following a big win.

There was the solo handshake last season after Alabama’s 83-82 win over then-No. 14 Houston in Tuscaloosa, and who could forget his choice words for former LSU head coach Will Wade after Alabama’s SEC Tournament championship win over the Tigers in 2021?

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After No. 3 Alabama’s come-from-behind win over Auburn on Saturday, he added another infamous moment to his list.

Oats was asked if it felt better to be booed by Auburn fans as his team walks off the court as winners, as opposed to losing and having to navigate to the locker room through the court-storming crowd.

“I think we’d get booed whether we win, lose, or whatever. They don’t like Alabama very well,” Oats said following Alabama’s 77-69 win over Auburn on Saturday. “But it is a lot better to be booed than to have the court-storming and try to figure out how to get off (the court).”

He then followed with a quote that will for sure be used as bulletin board material for Auburn ahead of next month’s rematch in Tuscaloosa.

“I know it was their Super Bowl, so it was nice to win over here,” Oats said.

After leading for a total of 24:56 of game time on Saturday, Auburn ran out of gas late. The Crimson Tide took their final lead of the game with 5:59 to go in the game, and they would not relinquish it.

Auburn will have a shot at payback on Wednesday, March 1 at Coleman Coliseum in Tuscaloosa.

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Joseph Goodman: Trash-talking Nate Oats has it all wrong about the Super Bowl

Updated: Feb. 12, 2023, 9:40 a.m.|Published: Feb. 12, 2023, 6:46 a.m.

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Nate Oats is a terrific trash talker.

In the days leading up to Saturday’s 77-69 victory at Neville Arena, Alabama’s men’s basketball coach referred to the game against the Crimson Tide’s rival as Auburn’s Super Bowl. It was a dig at Auburn’s team this season compared to his, but Oats was wrong in his assessment of Auburn’s passion for hoops. The Super Bowl might be the biggest game in the world, but it’s got nothing on games at Neville Arena.

Auburn students began pitching their tents outside the basketball arena two nights before tipoff. They wanted to ensure themselves a seat in the building. Those kids will never forget that experience, and the atmosphere they created, and the NCAA Tournament committee isn’t going to forget how Alabama stared it all down and delivered a signature moment worthy of the best team in the country.

Desire smoldered from every seat in the final minutes of this one. It was beautiful. It was a burning hoops heaven. It was college basketball at its best. Oats is a terrific trash talker, yes, and I love that about him, but he was wrong. I’ve covered the Super Bowl, and they don’t come close to touching the passion of an Auburn home basketball game against Alabama.

This was more. This was better. And here’s the true beauty of it all. This is now what people expect from their basketball teams in this state of elite college hoops.

“This is why college basketball is different than the NBA,” said Oats after the victory, and he was 100 percent correct about that.

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Alabama has won games at No.1 Houston and at No.15 Arkansas this season, but this one was different. It counts extra, even with Auburn being unranked, and I don’t mean just bragging rights either. These days, the true test of toughness in the SEC is winning at Auburn. No offense to Kentucky and Tennessee, but before an SEC team can stake a claim to a No.1 seed in the NCAA Tournament, it must first win in Auburn’s paradise of hell.

Is it tougher to win at Auburn than Kentucky? I asked Oats that question after the game.

“Probably this year,” he said.

And then Oats, digging in deep the blades of disrespect, once again called this game Auburn’s “Super Bowl.”

Not a Super Bowl for Alabama, he implied, even though this was Alabama’s first victory at Neville in a non-pandemic setting since 2015. The victory in the 2020-21 season was hard-earned, but this one was against a good Auburn team, a feral student section and all of the mean energy Lee County could conjure.

“They’re right on top of you here,” Oats said.

Maybe in the future Alabama will have an arena worthy enough to match their rivals. Until that day comes, winning at Auburn will always mean a little more for everyone in the SEC. Oats’ team will play better teams this season, including one on Wednesday at the University of Tennessee, but none will offer his team a more intense atmosphere than Neville.

Greatness in the SEC goes through that building, and it has made Auburn’s principal rival better by association. UNC and Duke have that bond. So do Kentucky and Louisville. Add Auburn and Alabama to the list of college basketball’s best rivalries. These days, an Alabama team that can win at Neville Arena validates itself as a national title contender.

“Everything they say about Auburn’s crowd is true,” Alabama swingman Rylan Griffen said.

NBA scouts love Auburn’s barn of truth, too. From where the talent evaluators sit, with Alabama’s Brandon Miller on the court, it sure seemed like the premier basketball rivalry in the country. Here’s the important thing to understand about that, though. It was the same last season, but in reverse. Auburn, with NBA lottery pick Jabari Smith, was No.1 when these two teams faced off.

This time, Alabama is the team chasing history.

That’s how No.3 Alabama (21-3, 11-0) is playing with seven games left in the regular season and a two-game lead in the SEC standings. Texas A&M (18-7, 10-2) is second in the SEC, and Tennessee (19-6, 8-4) is now a distant third after losing back-to-back heartbreakers to Vanderbilt (13-12, 6-6) and Missouri (19-6, 7-5). This is Alabama’s best basketball team in school history, and the adversity caused by a former teammate being charged with capital murder during the season has only seemed to make this group stronger. It’s hard to fully comprehend, but there is no denying how tough this team has worked together since Darius Miles was arrested in the shooting death of Jamea Harris.

Whether anyone else wants to acknowledge it or not, this season is different and it will remain that way until it is over.

Oats is leading at an uncommon level, and his players and Alabama is lucky to have him. His counterpart on Saturday is one of the best in the country, too, and Auburn coach Bruce Pearl did everything he could for this one. Pearl pumped his arms and waved his fists to the crowd before tipoff. He passed out chicken biscuits to students early in the morning. It was almost enough.

Pearl is getting everything out of this season, and he has a good team, but sometimes good teams need to be better. This one came down to a couple possessions in the end, but Auburn couldn’t deliver. After Alabama’s Rylan Griffen blocked Wendell Green’s three-point attempt, there was no way the visiting team was letting this one slip away. Auburn shot 32.3 percent from the field and worse than that from behind the arc.

Sometimes the Super Bowls are sloppy.

Auburn (17-8, 7-5) has lost five of its last six games, but in the SEC, at least this season, I don’t think that’s too much of an indictment. There will be other big games for the Tigers , and a victory against Missouri on Tuesday (6 p.m.) would all but guarantee Auburn a spot in the NCAA Tournament.

Those crazy kids camped out in tents for student seats in the cold and the rain. That’s love, and that’s something even better than a Super Bowl. That’s college basketball in Auburn, Alabama.

KENTUCKY BLUES

How many teams will the SEC get in the NCAA Tournament, and will Kentucky be one among them? These are the big questions around the league as it moves into the final few weeks of the regular season.

During his postgame news conference, when he wasn’t throwing shade at Auburn, Alabama’s Oats asked me about Kentucky’s game against Georgia. I confirmed for Alabama’s coach the Big ‘L’ for Big Blue. Georgia defeated Kentucky 75-68 on Saturday, giving the Wildcats back-to-back losses for the week.

Kentucky (16-9, 7-5) dropped a home game to Arkansas (17-8, 6-6) on Tuesday, and the outcome against Georgia was big for Auburn. It allowed the Tigers to remain in fourth place in the SEC despite the loss to Alabama. The top four teams in the SEC receive a double-bye in the SEC Tournament.

Georgia (15-10, 5-7) made 25 of 29 free throws and only committed seven turnovers in its victory against Kentucky. Here’s how deep the SEC is this season. Georgia might still be able to work its way back into the conversation for an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament despite currently being 11th in the SEC standings.

Kentucky isn’t out of it yet, in other words, and I know how much everyone would hate to see UK coach John Calipari miss the NCAA Tournament after his team was bounced by St. Peter’s in 2022. I think the SEC will end up getting eight teams in the field, which would tie the record. The league had six teams in the NCAA Tournament last year, but only Arkansas made it to the second weekend.

BUCKY BALL

Samford coach Bucky McMillan is two victories away from his second 20-win season in a row as a third-year college coach. Pretty good stuff. The Mountain Brook coaching legend was hired right before the beginning of the pandemic, so that first season shouldn’t even really count.

The Bulldogs defeated The Citadel 76-70 on Saturday to remain tied with Furman for first place in the SoCon. Jermaine Marshall of Hueytown had 23 points off the bench.

The Bulldogs (18-9, 12-2) remain tied with Furman atop the SoCon standings. Samford has two home games left in the regular season. There’s Wednesday’s game against UNC-Greensboro (6:30 p.m.), and then the season finale against Furman (2 p.m., Feb.25).

Joseph Goodman is the lead sports columnist for the Alabama Media Group, and author of “We Want Bama: A season of hope and the making of Nick Saban’s ‘ultimate team’”. You can find him on Twitter @JoeGoodmanJr.

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February victory drought has NCAA Tournament repercussions for Tigers

Mark Murphy

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AUBURN, Alabama–Bruce Pearl knew the second half of his team’s SEC schedule was going to be much tougher than the first half and that is proving to be the case. Despite the coach saying his basketball team is improving, the wins are not coming and unless Auburn gets that fixed in the coming weeks the Tigers could be on the outside looking in at this year’s NCAA Basketball Tournament.

On Saturday, despite leading the majority of the game vs. third-ranked Alabama, the Tigers allowed the Tide get out of Neville Arena with a 77-69 victory. Auburn’s shooting went cold in the final minutes and Pearl said the defense wasn’t as good as it needed to be to close out a game. That dropped Auburn’s record to 17-8 overall and 7-5 in the league.

"It was just tough down the stretch," said senior Jaylin Williams, who scored 14 of his 16 points vs. Alabama in the first half. "We needed stops and needed to stick together. I mean, we stuck together but we couldn't really get stops when we needed to get stops, couldn't get rebounds. I know I missed a couple checkouts on Brandon Miller and it cost us the game a little bit."

Junior guard Wendell Green, who scored 24 points for the Tigers, agreed with Williams about the defense not stepping up with the game on the line. "We just had to get stops, and we didn't get stops."

The Tigers have lost three in a row going into a Tuesday 6 p.m. CST home game vs. Missouri. Auburn has lost five of its last six games.

“We have lost to five NCAA Tournament teams and because we have had such a good year from a standpoint of beating the team we were supposed to beat, we have got some great road wins, and the margins that we have lost have been close, our NET is not getting destroyed, which keeps you where you need to be,” Pearl pointed out

“We have got some games coming up this week that we need to win so that’s the mindset,” said Pearl, whose team will play on the road next Saturday at Vanderbilt.

“The mindset is how quickly can we learn from the plays that we didn’t make that have continued to cost us from winning, on both ends of the floor,” the coach said.

“Missouri will come in on Tuesday, absolutely on fire, because that’s a game...we have still got a really good number, and they are still trying to get themselves on the bubble. I’m not sure exactly where they are at, but I think they are right there–first four in, first four out.

“I apologize if I don’t have the right one,” Pearl added. “I just know they are really close, and they are fighting to go to the (NCAA) tournament. It’s going to be a really, really hard-fought game and now, the NCAA Tournament is in play and on the line. We talked about that after the game.”

After the trip to Nashville on Saturday the Tigers will face road games at Kentucky and Alabama with a home contest vs. Ole Miss before closing the regular season at home vs. Tennessee. After that it is the SEC Tournament in Nashville. Pearl said the Tigers aren’t looking at those matchups at this time and are squarely focused on Mizzou.

Despite a dozen points for K.D. Johnson, Auburn's bench didn't provide enough help vs. the Tide. (Photo: Jason Caldwell, 247Sports)

“I promise you, don't worry about me getting them ready,” he said. “Missouri is really good. We will respect them, and they (Auburn’s players) will understand.”

28COMMENTS

The Tigers have not played Missouri or Vanderbilt this season. “We need to be more than ready to play,” Pearl said. “We need to play better. We need to shoot better. We need to make plays on both ends of the floor better. We need more guys to step up. I have got to do a better job. We need all that.”

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auburnwire.usatoday.com

 

Tigers of the Game: Green, Williams shine in defeat

Taylor Jones

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Auburn suffered a tough defeat at the hands of No. 3 Alabama on Saturday. The Tigers led for more than 3/4 of the game, but a late run by the Crimson Tide resulted in them jumping ahead and earning the 77-69 win on Saturday in Neville Arena.

Auburn had plenty of upside in the loss, however. Auburn made 85% of its free throws, they out-rebounded Alabama, and three players reached double-figures in points.

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Wendell Green Jr. and Jaylin Williams was the Tigers that did the most damage against the Crimson Tide, which leads them to earn Tigers of the Game votes.

Here’s a look at how Auburn Wire writers Taylor Jones, J.D. McCarthy, and River Wells, as well as Auburn fans, voted for their Tiger of the Game following Auburn’s loss to Alabama.

Michael Chang/Getty Images

Williams was Auburn’s most accurate shooter, connecting on 63% of his shots (5-for-8) from the field, and went 3-for-4 from the free throw line on his way to scoring 16 points.

Julie Bennett-USA TODAY Sports

For the second straight game, Wendell Green Jr. led the team in points by dropping 24. His 24 points is a season-high for Green, and he posted the second-highest individual scoring output this season, trailing Johni Broome’s 27-point outing at South Carolina.

Jake Crandall/ The Montgomery Advertiser

His 24-point outing is the highest point total that he has accumulated in an Auburn uniform, topping his 23-point game against Alabama on Feb. 1, 2022, a game that Auburn won 100-81.

His best game in college career happened on Jan. 2, 2021 as a member of Eastern Kentucky’s roster. He dropped 30 on Austin Peay in an 80-75 win. He scored at least 24 points in five games during the 2020-21 season.

Michael Chang/Getty Images

Wendell Green Jr. won the fan vote by an overwhelming margin, earning 70% of the vote.

Cast your vote for your “Tiger of the Game” by visiting Auburn Wire on Twitter following every game.

Jake Crandall/ The Montgomery Advertiser

Here is a look at how many Tigers have earned a “Tiger of the Game” vote this season:

Johni Broome	32
Wendell Green Jr.	24
Jaylin Williams	14
Allen Flanigan	5
K.D. Johnson	2
Chris Moore	2
Tre Donaldson	1

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Auburn fan’s sign on ESPN’s College Gameday makes apparent reference to Darius Miles

Updated: Feb. 11, 2023, 11:03 a.m.|

Published: Feb. 11, 2023, 10:57 a.m.

ESPN cameras on College Gameday capture a fan holding a sign reading, "Alabama has more players in court than on the court," in Auburn's Neville Arena on Feb. 11, 2023. (ESPN screenshot)

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Mike Rodak | mrodak@al.com

A sign being held up by an Auburn fan making an apparent reference to a capital murder charge against former Alabama men’s basketball player Darius Miles was shown Saturday on ESPN.

“Bama has more players in court than on the court!,” the sign read.

The network’s “College Gameday” program, airing from Auburn before Saturday afternoon’s game against Alabama, showed an isolated camera shot on the sign. The network aired that shot along with those of a few other signs before it cut to the beginning of an interview with Tigers coach Bruce Pearl.

Miles, a junior forward now dismissed from the team, was charged Jan. 15 for his alleged role in the shooting death of Jamea Harris in Tuscaloosa. Prosecutors say Miles admitted to providing the gun that witnesses say Michael Davis, also charged with capital murder, used to shoot Harris after an argument on the city’s bar strip.

Miles is set to appear for a preliminary hearing later this month.

Alabama coach Nate Oats said days after Miles was charged that he hoped visiting fans would respect the severity of the situation and not make joking references to it.

“I’ve talked to our team about that,” Oats said Jan. 20. “Basically I told them this: if people want to be ignorant, and say things that are completely out of line -- and in this case, I would think, this isn’t a case where somebody got into some trouble. These are serious matters. There’s a five-year old, Kaine, that doesn’t have a mother anymore.

“This is not, to me, something that students should be joking about. If somebody does happen to say something, I just told our guys, you’ve got to be strong enough, tough enough. We’re here to play basketball. We know who we are, what we’ve done. We’re not -- if they’re yelling things at us, they’re completely out of line. Ignore them. Move on. For those guys that will be in the pros, some fans say outrageous stuff to professional athletes at times.

“I hope it doesn’t happen anywhere. I hope people have enough decency to recognize -- I mean, we have talked to our guys, though, about just ignoring it. Let’s focus on the task at hand. Let’s focus on what we can control.”

The next day, after Alabama played a road game at Missouri, Oats said a fan was removed from the student section in Mizzou Arena after making a comment toward visiting Tide players about Miles.

“They got him out of there,” Oats said Jan. 21. “Sometimes college students don’t understand the severity of things. For the most part, it was fine.”

Mike Rodak is an Alabama beat reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @mikerodak.