Nate Oats threatening to shatter Alabama basketball glass ceiling

Alabama football is used to running the show in Tuscaloosa but Nate Oats has fans believing in the Alabama basketball team for the first time in a long time.

Basketball has always been an afterthought at Alabama where football is king and everything else is just killing time until football season rolls around. First-year head coach Nate Oats is beginning to change that.

Alabama basketball season is what fans used to check out after the Tide won their bowl game or added to their national championship banners to occupy their attention until spring practice rolled around. Crimson Tide basketball has never been great, it’s barely been good, but Oats has fans believing in the future of the program as he threatens to shatter the glass ceiling in Tuscaloosa.

Oats, 45, was one of my favorite hires during last year’s coaching carousel. Oats went 96-43 in four seasons at Buffalo but was 59-13 in his last two seasons that included a pair of first-place finishes in the MAC and a pair of Round of 32 appearances in the NCAA Tournament. He was trending in the right direction of a young and upcoming coach who could take the reins of a Power 5 job and transform it under his vision.

It only took half a season to see Oats’ vision at Alabama. The Crimson Tide are 12-7 overall and 4-2 in the tough SEC entering Wednesday night’s contest at No. 22 LSU. This won’t have the same cache or magnitude as the football counterparts but it’s an opportunity for Alabama to make a statement that they’re here to be reckoned with and they’re not going away.

LSU is undefeated in the SEC so a win by Oats’ team to move within 1 game of the SEC lead would be significant heading into February when teams position themselves for the conference tournaments and NCAA Tournament.

They have a better conference record than Florida and Tennessee. They’re a half-game behind Auburn, a Final Four team of a year ago, and one good week away from being the top team in the SEC.

This isn’t Alabama basketball of old. This is the new Alabama basketball.

There has been some hope under previous regimes, including Oats’ predecessor, Avery Johnson, who was 13 games over .500 in his four years. The former NBA player was supposed to bring a new profile to the program and attract a new level of recruit.

All this was supposed to turn Alabama from a rollover to a contender. While Johnson was able to recruit a high-profile player like Collin Sexton, it only materialized into a brief appearance in the AP Top 25 at No. 24 and a single NCAA Tournament appearance.

Before Johnson, there was a three-year run under Anthony Grant that looked like the program was going to enter the upper-half of the SEC. It fizzled and faded and Grant was fired too.

Mark Gottfried made five straight NCAA Tournament appearances from 2001-2006, even ranking as high as No. 1 in the AP Poll in the 2002-2003 season. It was a nice moment in Alabama basketball history but it resulted in a single Sweet 16 berth.

Before that, you have to go back to the Wimp Sanderson era in the 80s and early 90s when he led the Tide to 10 appearances in the NCAA Tournament in an 11-year stretch. Before him, it was C.M. Netwon’s teams in the late 60s and early 80s before Sanderson when Alabama was enjoying their Golden Era, much like what the football program is experiencing over the last decade, albeit minus the national championships.

Consider Alabama hasn’t finished the season ranked since 2004-2005 and has only won two tournament games since the 2005-2006 season. Alabama isn’t supposed to be a national power in basketball but such lack of success in the postseason is a daunting task for a first-year coach in a power conference.

Alabama is averaging 82.8 points per game, which is the highest offensive output for the program since averaging 80 in 1986-1987 when Sanderson’s team went 28-5, finished No. 9 in the AP Poll and lost in the Regional Semifinal.

Sophomore Kira Lewis Jr. has been a driving force behind Alabama’s offensive success this year, averaging a team-high 16.8 points per game. The Meridianville, AL native also has a well-rounded game that sees him pull down 5.7 rebounds per game and dish out 4.6 assists per game.

While recent Alabama football teams have come alive with the offense, the Tide has traditionally been a program that wins with defense. Oats’ basketball team is learning a little from Nick Saban and using his defensive efficiency to complement his offensive output.

Alabama basketball is second in the SEC in defensive efficiency and has locked teams down from downtown. Alabama is only allowing its opponents to make 30.4 percent of their 3-point attempts.

In an era when so many college basketball teams are living and dying by the 3-point shot, more often than not, Alabama basketball is killing teams with their perimeter defense.

This style wins games in March.

This is why Oats can lead Alabama basketball to new heights the program hasn’t seen in decades before him.

This is why Oats is threatening to shatter the glass ceiling in Tuscaloosa and change the perception of Alabama basketball.

Alabama will always be a football school, but Oats is making inroads to making it a football school that also plays a little bit of basketball.

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