Oats, "How do we respond?"

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Nate Oats took the podium following No. 2 Alabama's 94-85 loss to the No. 1 Auburn Tigers.

Coach Oats opened his presser by stating, "Obviously, it's a disappointing loss. Give Auburn a lot of credit. They're the No. 1 team in the country for a reason. They did a great job taking away our threes and contesting them... They outscored us by 21 points from 3, and that's too many with the game plan we were trying to execute."

The Crimson Tide's poor shooting percentage Saturday afternoon was a mix of poor ball movement and bad shot selection:

"Too many bad shots... The ball wasn't moving well, period. For our entire team." Oats stated in his postgame press conference.

Coach Oats also addressed a moment in the game, where a fan threw an object onto the field of play, prompting Oats to take the mic and tell the crowd to stop, "I have no idea what happened," Oats said emphatically. "The administration told me somebody threw something on the floor. Officials said if we did it again we would get a T in a game that was tight. ... If it was one of our fans, I'm disappointed. It doesn't help us win... Don't do dumb stuff, I tell my players don't do dumb stuff... it helps if the fans don't do dumb stuff and get the other team points."

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Oats also mentioned a similar loss last year, when the Tennessee Volunteers defeated Alabama on a Saturday when College Gameday was also in Tuscaloosa and the Crimson Tide would struggle down the final stretch of the regular season. Prompting Coach Oats to call for the team leadership to step up:

"We'll see what type of maturity and leadership we have."

Coach Oats finished with his message to the team, saying, "Every goal we have remaining is still in our control, that has to be our mindset. No one feels good today, we just lost to our archrival. How do we respond?"

The Crimson Tide will retake the court on Wednesday against Missouri in Columbia.

For more Alabama Baseball, Basketball, and Football content from Simon Besnoy, follow him on Twitter at @SimonBesnoy and stay tuned to Tide1009.com for daily news.