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Nate Oats on Alabama players in transfer portal: ‘We may not want all of them back’
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Following Avery Johnson’s departure in Tuscaloosa, a number of Alabama’s players are currently exploring their options elsewhere by entering the NCAA’s transfer portal.
Star freshman Kira Lewis, along with junior Dazon Ingram, sophomore John Petty and junior Daniel Giddens are the four players available to be contacted by any school after entering their names in the portal. With Donta Hall exhausting his eligibility at Alabama, new coach Nate Oats will have a significant rebuilding job to do if all those players leave.
During his introductory press conference in Tuscaloosa, Oats noted that he will work hard to recruit some of those players to return to Tuscaloosa; although he did note he won’t necessarily be recruiting them all back to Alabama.
“Kid wants to put his name in the transfer portal he can put it in, that doesn’t mean he’s going to go. He can obviously come back and we are going to work hard to recruit the kids that we want back,” Oats said on Thursday. “Now, some of them we may not want all of them back.”
One player Oats definitely does want back is Lewis. In order to do so, however, he’ll have to work against several SEC programs that have already reached out to the team’s young star.
“We need a culture here that wants to work and work hard and has a great attitude and Kira is definitely one of those that we definitely want back and we are going to work as hard as we can to keep him here,” Oats continued. “His talent is great, he’s an Alabama kid that can really help us get into the part of the SEC we want to get to we’re going to work hard to keep him.”
A graduate of the University of Tennessee, Michael Wayne Bratton oversees the news coverage for Saturday Down South. Michael previously worked for FOX Sports and NFL.com
