Nate Oats says Purdue embarrassed Alabama in 1 key area
By Jacob Moss
Published:
The eighth-ranked Alabama Crimson Tide men’s basketball program dropped its first game of the new season on Thursday night, falling to the second-ranked Purdue Boilermakers at home 87-80.
One of the biggest reasons for the Tide’s early-season loss to the team that knocked them out of the Final Four a couple of seasons ago was Purdue’s domination of Alabama on the boards. Head coach Nate Oats was none too pleased with the effort on the glass in his postgame presser.
“They’re one of the most disciplined (teams),” Oats said. “They run their stuff in the halfcourt. They know how to attack all your coverages. But, at the end of the day, the tougher team won tonight. They out-rebounded us by 24. That’s embarrassing.
“In life, in sports, the team that plays harder, people that work harder in whatever field they’re in should win. And they won. They deserved to win. They were tougher. My guess is they prepared better coming into the game than we did. And we’re gonna have to fix some stuff.”
In total, the Boilermakers out-rebounded Alabama to the tune of 52-28, and they also collected 19 boards on the offensive glass compared to just 7 for the Tide.
Oats called the offensive glass a “major problem” his team has to get sorted out if they want to beat the nation’s best.
“We’ve got major problems on the backboard. Their starting frontcourt had 24 rebounds. Our starting frontcourt had 6. That’s a problem,” Oats said. “Until we figure out how to make tougher plays, rebound the basketball at a much higher level, we’re going to have a hard time beating the best teams in the country.”
Alabama plays No. 14 Illinois next Wednesday in Chicago.
