Nate Oats says Alabama ‘got demolished on the glass’ in blowout loss to Arizona
By Mark Kern
Published:
Nate Oats and the Alabama Crimson Tide lost to Arizona by a score of 96-75 on Saturday to fall to 7-3 on the season. The game was close to start the second half, but the Wildcats took complete control and ran away with the game.
The Crimson Tide’s three losses this year have been to Purdue, Gonzaga and now Arizona. All three of those teams look like they are capable of making a run to the Final Four. In the loss to the Bulldogs, they were out-rebounded 48-36. Rebounding was once again a big issue against a huge Wildcats team, as the Crimson Tide was out-rebounded 52-32.
After the game, Oats talked about the team not having chance against the best teams if it won’t rebound.
“If we’re not gonna rebound, we’re gonna lose — I mean, we’ve done this twice where we’ve just got demolished on the glass,” Oats told reporters. “We really won’t have a shot to win these games.” “We chart the blue collar points. They destroyed us, plus-33 on that stuff. … The four-minute wars on the blue collar, they kind of annihilated us on all the effort stuff. When you get beat that bad on the effort stuff, you deserve to lose by 20, and that’s what happened tonight.”
It was especially bad on the offensive glass, where the Wildcats had a 22-3 advantage. That helped give the Wildcats a 44-20 advantage in the points in the paint. Guard Labaron Philon Jr. did his part on the glass, as he finished with a double-double with 24 points and 10 rebounds.
The front-court of Aiden Sherrell (5) and Taylor Bol Bowen (4) combined for only nine. Arizona backup big Tobe Awaka had 15 rebounds himself off the bench, including seven offensive.
SEC play is just around the corner, and Oats knows how imperative it is going to be for the team to start rebounding better.
