Alabama
Nick Saban Gave Pep Talk to Alabama Basketball Team Before Win vs. Texas A&M
Brandon Sumrall/Getty Images
Alabama men’s basketball coach Nate Oats said former football coach Nick Saban gave the Crimson Tide players a pep talk before Saturday’s 100-75 win over Texas A&M.
He said during his appearance on the Crimson Tide Sports Network that pregame show that Saban talked about keeping the focus on the present, not the end goal (h/t Mike Rodak of 247Sports):
“We had Coach Saban talk to our team yesterday. Always go back to his process. Like, honestly, the more you talk about championships, the less you’re focused on what you should be doing today. So they know where we’re at [in the SEC]. I briefly mentioned where we’re at, but I spent the majority of the conversation on focus areas on what we have to do today to get us better than we were yesterday. I think all that other stuff, the championships and all that, takes care of itself if you do that.”
The Crimson Tide likely have an SEC title on the mind. At 18-7 on the year but 10-2 in SEC play, Alabama currently sits atop the conference and is in the driver’s seat to win the regular season title, though tough matchups against Florida (twice), Kentucky and Tennessee still loom.
“That’s a big win; we’ve got teams right on our tail in the SEC race,” Oats told reporters after Saturday’s victory. “It was a well-needed win at this point in the year.”
Alabama swept both the regular season and conference titles in two of the past three seasons and is looking to continue its dominance in this year’s campaign.
The team is also fighting for a high seed in the NCAA tournament. In the NCAA Selection Committee’s early top-16 seeds, it had the Crimson Tide projected to finish as a No. 3 seed. Purdue, UConn, Houston and Arizona were the 1-seeds, followed by North Carolina, Tennessee, Marquette and Kansas as the twos and Alabama, Baylor, Iowa State and Duke as the threes.
The Crimson Tide earned a 2-seed in 2021 and were the top overall seed last year, though in both seasons they failed to advance past the Sweet 16. Still, Oats has steadily been turning the program into a powerhouse, and the Crimson Tide have titles on the mind.