Nate Oats and Alabama have been picked to finish 5th in the SEC before. A few times, actually.

The Alabama head coach spoke on the “disrespectful” ranking on Wednesday at SEC basketball media days. However, he wasn’t using that ranking as a shot at reporters, necessarily. In fact, he was almost thanking them.

Oats told reporters that every team ultimately wants to prove themselves and be at the top of the pack by the end of the year, but that the rankings do not necessarily mean anything. Just look Jerry Stackhouse and Vanderbilt, who were picked to finish 12th in the conference last season. They ended up finishing 6th.

Here’s more of what Oats had to say:

“It’s hard to predict pre-season stuff. You have to do it. Generates fan interest. Let’s do it. But we can use fifth to motivate us, disrespectful, it is what it is. There’s some other really good teams in our league that are picked ahead of us, other good teams picked behind us. Look at Vanderbilt last year. Look at where they were picked and where they finished. I think Stackhouse did an unbelievable job. Coach of the Year voting, I went to see who made the biggest jump pre-season to where they actually finished. I think he did a better job than anybody which is why he had my vote. Would I like to be picked fifth and finish first again? Yes, I would. That’s our goal. But I think that’s 14 teams’ goal to finish first.”

Alabama opens its 2023-24 campaign on November 6 vs. Longwood.