Alabama head coach Nate Oats thought back to his days as a high school basketball coach in Michigan at Romulus while contemplating a question Friday.
He specifically remembered one brawl against Belleville. Oats threw his shoulder out trying to get somebody out of the fight.
“Hopefully we don’t have any of that,” Oats said, previewing the matchup between Alabama men’s basketball and Auburn men’s basketball.
Oats had been asked about coaching his players not to go over the edge, playing with emotion but not being overly emotional in this significant
“My point to all the teams all the time, and it’s going to be to these guys as well, we’re not interested in winning a boxing match, a football game, a wrestling match,” Oats said. “It doesn’t matter. There’s a score on the scoreboard. Points are scored for the ball going through the rim. We need to beat them on the scoreboard. All the other stuff, there’s no points for a takedown in wrestling. There’s no points for a knockout. That’s not what we’re doing here. Let them try to win the boxing match. Wrestling match. We’re going to win the scoreboard. We walk out of here winners on the scoreboard … anything that takes away from winning on the scoreboard is losing basketball. Retaliating to something dumb is losing basketball. Let the refs catch them doing it."
The Crimson Tide and Tigers are set to play in the first No. 1 vs. No. 2 regular-season game in SEC history. Auburn, ranked No. 1 in the AP top 25 and No. 2 in the coaches poll, will face Alabama, ranked No. 2 in the AP top 25 and No. 1 in the coaches poll, on Saturday (3 p.m., ESPN) at Coleman Coliseum.
There’s already plenty of tension and animosity in this rivalry. Now mix in the stakes of this game, and it will only bring it to another level.
But Oats doesn’t want his players getting mixed up in any extracurriculars. That won’t do any good.
