Nate Oats Addresses Scheduling In Preseason Presser

The 2020-21 Basketball season has commenced as the Tide had their first official practice on Thursday. Nate Oats addressed the media and gave a preview to upcoming season.

The first order of business was the scheduling. With the NCAA announcing the season would start on Nov. 25^th Oats says, “we have a schedule we think is set, we’ve sent the contracts out… We tried to maintain everything after the 25^th as close to what we had previously.”

Oats would also go on to confirm the Tide’s appearance in the Maui Invitational and a tentative out of conference schedule that includes nine games.

Alabama comes into the season as a high-flying offense that ranked top five in both 3-pointers made and pace, however on the defensive end they gave up the 7^th most points in the nation.

With 30 practices being allotted within 42 days of the season opener Oats wants to establish a defensive identity. “Our offense was good enough to compete at the top of the SEC last year our defense was lacking by a large margin. We got to get the defense fixed we got to establish that mindset out of the gate.”

When asked about the team itself Oats highlighted Herbert Jones’ improvement as a shooter and the variety of options available at the point guard position, and the length the Tide posses on the defensive end of the court.

The entire press conference can be viewed here.

With 4-star forwards in Keon Ambrose and Alex Tchikou coming to campus alongside with Jordan Burner and James Rojas the frontcourt adds versatility, length and depth coming into the 2020-21 season.

With a guard friendly system Jahvon Quinerly, Josh Primo, and Keon Ellis will also look to make a major impact as the Tide tries to make some noise this season.