Nate Oats, Bama Head Coach

[Roustabout]

Sometimes you get lucky. Danny White hired Oats while AD at Buffalo. He didn’t have to look far as he was already on staff when Bobby Hurley left to take the Arizona State job. Oats made his path coaching 11 years in high school, which doesn’t seem to happen very often.

While successful at Buffalo, this hire didn’t exactly move the needle. It does now.

 

[VolPack22]

If you saw his teams at Buffalo then you would’ve seen this coming. I knew he would get a big time coaching job. Whenever Alabama hired him I thought to myself that this was the best hire I’ve ever seen them make and it was cause for concern. I thought it was going to take 3-4 years before they started competing for the SEC Championship but he well exceeded those expectations from me. I thought the same thing with Musselman at Arkansas but I thought Alabama would be a little better because they were still able to reel in some 5 stars even with Avery Johnson. Those were home run hires. IMO the SEC has the best coaches in America right now and hopefully in a year or two we will be looked at as a top 2 conference nationally. It’s going to be a dog fight with Alabama, LSU, Arkansas, Auburn and Kentucky from here on out. Like Barnes said, we should be expected to get 6 teams in the NCAAT in a bad year. 7 or 8 in good years.

 

[Border Vol]

If you saw his teams at Buffalo then you would’ve seen this coming. I knew he would get a big time coaching job. Whenever Alabama hired him I thought to myself that this was the best hire I’ve ever seen them make and it was cause for concern. I thought it was going to take 3-4 years before they started competing for the SEC Championship but he well exceeded those expectations from me. I thought the same thing with Musselman at Arkansas but I thought Alabama would be a little better because they were still able to reel in some 5 stars even with Avery Johnson. Those were home run hires. IMO the SEC has the best coaches in America right now and hopefully in a year or two we will be looked at as a top 2 conference nationally. It’s going to be a dog fight with Alabama, LSU, Arkansas, Auburn and Kentucky from here on out. Like Barnes said, we should be expected to get 6 teams in the NCAAT in a bad year. 7 or 8 in good years.

Alabama will return to the level they were under Wimp Sanderson and that's the best they will be able to do.

 

[GSD82]

One year deal then back to normal for them. Side note: I will never understand when a team is down one why they shoot a 3.

 

[VolPack22]

Alabama is going to be a problem next year too. They have the 2nd ranked class in the SEC coming in and that JD Davison kid is going to be hard to stop. I know we have two more studs coming next year so we should be competing at a high level again but Alabama will be contending again next year.

 

[LittleCat]

Really like what he has done. They have a pretty good group of young guys. Will be hard to replace Petty and Jones, but Oats is no joke. I thoroughly enjoyed watching them in the sect. They play really nice basketball. Almost all threes or layups, super unselfish...just an awesome team.

 

[Wireless1]

One year deal then back to normal for them. Side note: I will never understand when a team is down one why they shoot a 3.

ANy drop off won't be because of Oats, I'd expect the Football boosters to step in and create a stir or run him off......you know like UK did The Bear

 

[VolGee4]

Alabama is going to be a problem next year too. They have the 2nd ranked class in the SEC coming in and that JD Davison kid is going to be hard to stop. I know we have two more studs coming next year so we should be competing at a high level again but Alabama will be contending again next year.

It will be interesting to see how well he does in the next couple of years. They will be good just not sure how good. Davison is obviously great. But one 4 star this year is a Juco guy, and he didn’t have many other high offers. He inherited a 5 Star Petty and 4 Star top 100 Jones. I think their experience really helped.

 

[golfballs]

If you saw his teams at Buffalo then you would’ve seen this coming. I knew he would get a big time coaching job. Whenever Alabama hired him I thought to myself that this was the best hire I’ve ever seen them make and it was cause for concern. I thought it was going to take 3-4 years before they started competing for the SEC Championship but he well exceeded those expectations from me. I thought the same thing with Musselman at Arkansas but I thought Alabama would be a little better because they were still able to reel in some 5 stars even with Avery Johnson. Those were home run hires. IMO the SEC has the best coaches in America right now and hopefully in a year or two we will be looked at as a top 2 conference nationally. It’s going to be a dog fight with Alabama, LSU, Arkansas, Auburn and Kentucky from here on out. Like Barnes said, we should be expected to get 6 teams in the NCAAT in a bad year. 7 or 8 in good years.

Yep, I knew when Bama hired him it could be trouble for the rest of the SEC. The timing was nice too as UK, Florida, and Tennessee have had their struggles this year