Alabama basketball wonât have an encore performance in this yearâs trip to the Music City. The No. 3 seeded Crimson Tide was bounced out of the SEC tournament Friday night with a 102-88 loss to No. 6 seed Florida.
Following the game, Alabama head coach Nate Oats spoke about the loss and how his team will look to rebound for next weekâs NCAA tournament.
Hereâs a full transcript of everything Oats said during his postgame press conference.
âObviously not the outcome we were expecting or hoping. Got to give Florida a lot of credit. They’ve played us really well two straight games. I thought we had a good start to the game, things were rolling. Kind of took the timeout, they got readjusted.
âI didn’t feel we had a killer’s mentality to kind of just put ’em away early. We could have I thought maybe buried them when we got them down 8-zip. They kind of took the timeout, they started making a comeback.
âWe kind of chart every four minutes, get the media timeouts. We were up .56 and .88 on defense the first two. The next six straight, they were over a 1.4. 1.5, 1.6, 1.57…
âOur defense just kind of, I don’t know if it was coming too easy, the offense. For whatever reason, our defense has been our Achilles’ heel all year. We had a good start today, couldn’t maintain it for 40 minutes.
âSo disappointing, but we’ll be in the NCAA tournament, so we had a good enough regular season. We had quality wins. We’ve got a pretty good tournament résumé. We’ll see where they send us.
âThese guys are going to have to decide how bad they want to win in the NCAA tournament, how much we want to continue to play defense for 40 minutes. If we play defense for 40 minutes, we can play with anybody in the country. If we decide to take 24 minutes off from the defensive end, it’s going to be hard to beat anybody in the NCAA tournament.”
âI think it’s a big part of it. I talked to them after the game. Like, adversity happens. You miss a shot, ref misses a call, teammate misses you being open. I mean, you can see it. Intensity is not there on defense. Bad defensive possession, they score. We don’t come back pushing the ball with pace on offense. Makes the next offensive possession harder. Just a snowball effect.
âIt goes both ways. You play really hard on defense, you get stops, transition, we score in really long transition. You don’t play hard on defense, you can’t get out in transition as much, we’re not as good. Snowball went on and on and on for, shoot, at least 24 minutes today.
âWe got to be better. I got to do a better job. I probably should have called a timeout in the middle of the six minutes at the end of the half. Maybe should have used an extra timeout on top of the one I actually used. We got to do a better job trying to keep guys in the game that are focused on defense. Coaches, we got to do a better job.â
âThat’s a good question.
âI thought we had a good, positive attitude coming into this tournament. I didn’t think we played particularly well against Arkansas. That would have been our third loss in a way. We came back, got the win. We’ve lost three of the last four. We haven’t been healthy. We just got Wrightsell back, Griffen back from the previous Florida game. Felt like we finally got our group together. We got a little healthier.
âI mean, it’s hard to change at any point during the year. Shoot, if we don’t change, we’re not going to be playing too many more games at this point. They’re going to have to decide how much more basketball they want to play together. This will be the last time this group gets to play together.
âI felt bad for Aaron [Estrada]. I felt he played pretty hard most of the day. Next time we lose, he’s done, his career’s over. He’s been a great teammate. He’s helped the program a lot. I would hope these guys would want to try to play a little harder for him at least.â
âYeah, I mean, [Griffenâs] first game back. He hasn’t even practiced. We haven’t had a live practice that he’s been able to participate in. You’re hoping he can step back in and play like he was playing before he went out, but it’s probably unrealistic. Hopefully the next time he plays… He’ll be in practice with us all week getting some live reps. He’s been pretty good for us all year.
âWrightsell has been banged up over the last month. He’s a lot better, to be honest with you. Having a healthy Wrightsell and Griffen obviously make a difference.
âStill go back to I just think the biggest problems is our defensive intensity. Those two have been some of our better perimeter defenders. Maybe if they can get a little healthier.
âObviously you’re judged a lot on what you do in March in college basketball. We need to try to make a deep NCAA tournament run. I think Rylan’s legs looked pretty good, his individual skill workouts. Probably needed some game reps. Hopefully, he plays a lot better this next weekend in the NCAA tournament.”
âYeah, I mean, we’re just going to have to come in and figure out who we’re going to play Sunday night. Put together a game plan. Tell them exactly how we’re going to have to do it. Talk about doing it every possession for 40 minutes regardless of what happens on offense.
âThey’re teenagers, young adults, young men. I’ve had issues like this with guys in the past. Seems like as a collective whole, this has been a little bit bigger issue with this group, not being able to forget the play before, move on to the next play.
âI told them again tonight, it really doesn’t matter whether you missed three wide-open shots, your teammate missed you, the ref blew a call. It doesn’t matter. Your effort on defense shouldn’t be affected by what happens on offense.We’ve got too many guys where I feel like it does.
âWe’re going to have to try to get the attitudes back right, just change. We want to win, this is what we’re going to have to focus on defense every possession. We’re going to try to reiterate it for the next week. Whether we play Thursday or Friday of next week, we have to be ready to go right out of the gate.â
âI think we got a lot of guys that are too worried about what happens on the offensive end. In practice you can run a defensive drill, and it’s defense, defense, boom, boom, boom. They’re working on their defense. You get in the game, and they’re worried about what their offensive number is, whatever it is. The offense goes bad. Whether it’s their fault or not. Shoot, sometimes they’re upset with the ref or the teammate or they miss a shot, haven’t got a shot in a few possessions. Defensive intensity lags.
âThe teams that can make deep tournament runs are teams that have a defensive mindset. Look at our group last year. Two out of the last three years we’ve been top three in defense, two out of the last three before this year. Those are teams that also won the SEC tournament. The two that were ranked right around a hundred, this one and two years ago, we got beat in the first round.
âThese guys are going to have to decide that other group got beat in the first game in the NCAA tournament. We have a week to decide if they can guard for 40 minutes or not. If we can, we can make a deep run in the NCAA tournament.
âIt’s not for lack of quality defensive personnel, in my opinion. Obviously we’re missing some guys here and there. We’ve got guys that are more than capable of being better than solid defenders. We don’t have to be a top three defense in the country when we have a top three offense in the country. If our defense was top 30, we’d be easily a top five, top 10 team in the country right now.
âYou’ve seen it from various teams this year where they figure it out and play hard on defense. We got to try to figure it out over the next week.â
âI’ve had a really good five years here working with Craig, Dr. Bell, the board. Just everybody around the school. I love it here. We’ve turned the program around. A little disappointed tonight obviously. We’d like to be playing tomorrow, playing for the SEC tournament championship.
âMore than the NCAA tournament, the 13 years before we got here, they’d only played in two. This will be four straight for us. We’ve got the program headed in the right direction, we’ve got the commitment from the administration that they’re going to continue to support us in a way that I feel like we can compete to be a top 10, top 25 team year in, year out.
âI appreciate their support in keeping me here. Take my name out of some of the other job openings that are there. Probably not great timing with this loss tonight, to be honest with you.â
âWe’re definitely lacking it. It’s not there enough. (Indiscernible) let offensive possessions affect his defensive energy. Some of those guys had a little bit more competitive character on the defensive end, which is why we were top three in the country in defense.
âSome of these guys have it at times. It’s just not consistently there enough from the group as a whole. I love this group of kids. They’re a bunch of really good kids.
âWe got to compete harder on the defense end for 40 minutes, and we’re not right now. We didn’t tonight. It’s been a problem with us through large parts of this year, to be honest with you.â
Jaxon Richardson, the No. 27 overall recruit in the 2026 class per the Rivals Industry Ranking, has committed to Alabama.
The 6-foot-6 four-star small forward out of Southeastern Prep (FL) ultimately chose the Crimson Tide over USC, Creighton, and Ole Miss. He also received offers from Miami, Cincinnati, Michigan, Florida, Villanova, and others.
Richardson, a McDonald’s All-American, becomes the Crimson Tide’s third commitment of the 2026 cycle. He joins four-star shooting guard Qayden Samuels (No. 28 NATL) and four-star small forward Tarris Bouie (No. 54 NATL).
He’s the son of NBA veteran and two-time NBA Dunk Contest champion Jason Richardson. His older brother, Jase, played for Michigan State last season before being selected 25th overall in the 2025 NBA Draft by the Orlando Magic.
Rivals’ National Recruiting Analyst Jamie Shaw says Richardson is one of the most explosive players in the 2026 class:
Jaxon Richardson is able to combine fluid athleticism with explosive burst in a way no other player in this class can. He uses his athleticism to his advantage on the floor. He fills the outside channels with a purpose in transition, he is aggressive in the passing lanes, and he plays as a vertical floor spacer in the dunker spots and lob plays. Last summer, playing with the Florida Rebels on Nike’s EYBL Circuit, the 6-foot-6 wing averaged 12.8 points on 54.0 percent shooting and 10.5 attempts per game. Last high school season, he averaged 12.9 points on 61.0 percent shooting on 8.9 attempts per game. He is a highly efficient player, as 84.4 percent of his makes last high school season were at the rim.
Alabama baseball cruised to a win over Alabama State on Wednesday night, beating the Hornets 13-4 to complete the season sweep. The Crimson Tide tied a program record with nine stolen bases in one of the stranger contests that will be played this season.
The tone was set for a tumultuous night on the basepaths in the opening minutes of the game. Leadoff batter Bryce Fowler, who exited Tuesday’s game after getting beaned in the head, was walked, and promptly took second base. He advanced to third on a wild pitch in Justin Lebron’s at-bat, paving the way for Lebron to steal second when he was ultimately walked as well.
The successful baserunning instantly paid off, as Brady Neal drove both in with a double to left-center field before John Lemm walked two at-bats later. Both runners stole their respective bases on the same pitch in Jason Torres’ plate appearance, meaning that four of the first five batters of the game stole a base.
Alabama has been exceptional on the basepaths, sitting at 30-for-30 on the season. Lebron, who swiped two bags on Wednesday, leads the team with 12. The junior had an up-and-down night, hitting his eighth home run of the season, but also committing an error at shortstop for the fourth consecutive game.
“Get those things out of there now, baby. The dude is unbelievable,” an unconcerned Rob Vaughn said on Tuesday of Lebron’s errors. “We’re going to look up at the end of the year, and that guy is going to have five or six errors, which one he’s got right now, and we’ll be like, ‘Man, that guy is the best of all time to do it.’”
Wednesday’s game was a very prototypical midweek contest with no shortage of quirks and oddities throughout its nearly four-hour runtime. Fifteen Alabama batters were walked, falling just one shy of the program record, and the hit by pitch record was tied as seven batters were plunked.
The game was never competitive from an on-field standpoint. After barely escaping with a 2-1 win in the first matchup with the Hornets two weeks ago, this was a far more accurate representation of what these games typically look like, as Alabama now leads the all-time series 15-0.
Freshman Joe Chiarodo made his first career start, allowing two hits and one walk over two scoreless innings. He was named the winning pitcher. Luke Smyers, Connor Lehman, Anthony Pesci and Tate Robertson were the other pitchers to take the mound. Lehman allowed a three-run blast in the sixth inning, and those were the only runs until the incredibly-named Skywalker Mann drove in a run off Robertson in the ninth.
Perhaps the most shocking figure from the game was that Alabama had 19 runners left on base. The Crimson Tide left the bases loaded in four different innings. As stated, this was just a bizarre baseball game across the board. With the midweeks out of the way, the Crimson Tide gets to prepare for its final weekend tune-up before SEC play as North Florida heads into Tuscaloosa on Friday.
The Healthy Early Development and Screen Time Act was signed on Wednesday, March 4, by Governor Kay Ivey to introduce limits on children’s screen time access in Alabama.
The Act is one of Ivey’s 2026 legislative priorities.
“Video screen access in classrooms can boost learning skills among our young children, but too much screen exposure can also be detrimental, harming critical social and cognitive development,” Ivey said. “The Healthy Early Development and Screen Time Act ensures our youngest students are provided a healthy balance of screen time and traditional learning in order to protect social and emotional development.”
Under the Healthy Early Development and Screen Time Act, the Alabama Department of Early Childhood Education will be required to work with the Department of Human Resources and the State Department of Education to develop guidelines for screen-based media.
Guidelines will be implemented in early childhood education programs like day care centers, day care homes, night care facilities, pre-kindergarten, kindergarten and group day care homes. The Act was sponsored by Representative Jeana Ross and Senator Donnie Chesteen.
“House Bill 78 establishes clear, research-based expectations for how technology is used in early childhood settings,” said Ross. “The goal is not to eliminate technology, but to ensure its use is developmentally appropriate and never replaces the hands-on learning and human interaction young children need most. By setting thoughtful guardrails and aligning classroom practices with the best available research on early brain development, this legislation supports educators, protects the quality of early learning and reinforces our commitment to giving Alabama’s youngest students the strongest possible start.”
A training program will also be created by the Department of Early Childhood Education to create a baseline for the appropriate use of child screentime for teachers and staff members supervising children.
“The Healthy Early Development and Screen Time Act represents another important step in ensuring Alabama’s youngest children grow and learn in environments that prioritize human interaction, exploration and healthy development,” said Chesteen. “Building on the progress made with last year’s FOCUS Act, this legislation continues our commitment to protecting the most formative years of childhood. I am grateful to Governor Kay Ivey and my colleagues in the Legislature for recognizing the importance of this issue and working together to support Alabama families.”
The Healthy Early Development and Screen Time Act will become effective on January 1, 2027.
Exclusive: DeepSeek withholds latest AI model from US chipmakers including Nvidia, sources say
Setting sail on iceboats across a frozen lake in Wisconsin
Mother and daughter injured in Taunton house explosion
Massachusetts man awaits word from family in Iran after attacks
AM showers Sunday in Maryland
Florida man rescued after being stuck in shoulder-deep mud for days
10 acres charred, 5 injured in Thornton grass fire, evacuation orders lifted
2026 OSAA Oregon Wrestling State Championship Results And Brackets – FloWrestling
