After a 113-88 blowout win over the BYU Cougars on Thursday night, the Alabama Crimson Tide spent Friday getting ready for their toughest task of the season: a matchup with the No. 1 Duke Blue Devils in the East Region finale of the Elite Eight in the 2025 NCAA Tournament.
No. 2 seed Alabama (28-8 overall) and No. 1 seed Duke (34-3) will tip off at 7:49 p.m. CT Saturday night from Prudential Center in Newark, N.J. The game will be televised on TBS and truTV.
In the Crimson Tide’s rout of BYU, Alabama made a March Madness record 25 3-pointers, with Mark Sears scoring 34 points on 10-of-16 shooting from beyond the arc. Aden Holloway added 23 points on 6-of-13 from 3-point land.
A few hours later in Newark, Duke held off No. 4 seed Arizona, 100-93. Cooper Flagg led the Blue Devils with 30 points to go with seven assists, six rebounds and three blocks in the team’s 14th consecutive victory.
Ahead of Saturday’s Elite Eight showdown, Alabama coach Nate Oats spoke to the media at Prudential Center. Here’s everything Oats said.
Nate Oats’ opening statement ahead of Elite Eight showdown with Duke baloncesto
“Yeah, I thought our guys came ready to go last night. Fun game. But I woke up this morning and reminded them the job is not done. So while it was fun last night, we’ve got to get locked into Duke, and Duke is obviously really talented. I think these guys have been good being able to get locked into a scouting report, getting themselves ready to go. We had a good practice, tried to make sure that we’re going to keep them fresh.
“Duke causes issues on both sides of the ball. They’re top five in the country in offensive and defensive efficiency. We’ve got to be really locked in on both sides of the ball. They’ve got multiple first-round picks, multiple lottery picks, so there’s plenty of matchups we’ve got to be concerned with. Obviously everybody is going to look to Cooper, and he’s a super talented player and really good. We’re going to have to try different things and see who kind of becomes maybe our best matchup there and see what we can do.
“But they’ve also got some other really good players that are going to play in the NBA a long time. They have one of the best rim protectors in the country in Maluach — I believe I’m saying it right. But he’s extremely good. It’s hard to score them at the rim. They’ve got Knueppel who shoots it really well and Sion James and Proctor, who shoots it great. They’re good, got length everywhere. That’s why they’re good on defense. We’re going to have our hands full.
“But we’ve played against tough teams all year. I think we’ve played pretty well. In our last regular season game, we were on the road at Auburn. Auburn played these guys tough. We played Kentucky, Kentucky beat this team. It was a long time ago. So I think our league has got us ready for it, but we’re going to have to play well.”
Oats says Jarin Stevenson can be Crimson Tide’s ‘X-factor’ vs Duke
Oats was asked for his assessment on the season Jarin Stevenson has had, his role in Alabama’s 89-82 win over Clemson in last year’s Elite Eight game, and if he’s someone that can be counted on against Duke. Here’s Oats’ response:
“Yeah, I was just talking to somebody about that earlier today. He didn’t playing particularly well in the Sweet 16 game last year against North Carolina. I was hoping he would play great. He’s from Chapel Hill, would have been a great story, but wasn’t meant to be that way.
“Just encouraged him, he comes out, he goes 5 of 8 from three and scores 19 points as a freshman. That’s — Jarin was supposed to be a senior in high school, supposed to be freshman year in college. So last year as a kid, that’s supposed to be a senior in high school> He scores 19 in an Elite Eight game to send us to our first Final Four in school history.
“I don’t think he’s afraid of the moment at all. Has he struggled a little bit? Yeah. He’s a pretty quiet kid and he’s gone through some slumps as any players do. Shoot, some of the best NBA players go through shooting slumps. I think he’s more than capable of going 5 of 8 again or doing something great. We’re going to need him to be great. Duke has got size everywhere. His athleticism to guard — I’m guessing maybe you watched our game when we played at Carolina earlier this year. He did as good a job as anybody on RJ Davis when we beat Carolina at Carolina.
“He’s capable of being one of the elite two-way guys in the country with his shooting ability, his finishing, his strength, his athleticism on offense, and then how he can guard guys. We just need to keep pumping him full of confidence. He’s a kid that he doesn’t even know how good he is. When you talk to him, he has no idea. I mean, I think he should be a long-time NBA player. We’ve just got to realize he’s young and pump him full of confidence and get him going because he could be an X-factor for us for sure.”
Oats on the threat Duke guard Kon Knueppel poses
“One of the best shooters in the country. We tried to recruit him. We did a pretty good job, and it wasn’t finta good enough. Because I’d like to have his shooting ability in our offense. But they have it. Now we’ve got to figure out how to guard it. He doesn’t miss much. He gets his stuff off, actions, he gets his feet set. But he’s also a strong physical driver. He’s got good size, can get downhill, and he’s a super high IQ guy. He’s very good. There’s a reason he’s going to be a lottery pick this year.”
Oats on what Duke center Khaman Maluach does well
“He’s a lob target. Cooper likes to find him in ball screens going to the rim. When he’s kind of down in that dunkers area, if you will, behind the backboard, guys help up, they find him on lobs. He’s done that well for them on offense. The biggest thing is protect the rim. Makes it impossible to score at the rim when he’s in there. They’ve got top five offense and defense, and he kind of anchors that defense, so he’s been elite for them on that end all year.”
Oats on Cooper Flagg’s biggest strength, what he hopes to try to take away
“I mean, I think his strength is his versatility because if you try to take one thing away, he can go to something — I’d like to say, well, let’s keep him from getting to the rim because he’s such an athletic, strong downhill driver. Well, he’s shooting in the high 30s, 36, 37 percent, whatever it is.
“And then say, okay, well, he’s actually better off the dribble than he is on catch-and-shoot, so, what, do you go under on pick-and-rolls? Well, he’s shooting almost 40 percent on off-the-dribble threes. You go over pick-and-rolls, he gets downhill. He gets downhill, he throws lobs, he finishes at the rim.
“Look, there’s a reason he’s going to be the No. 1 pick in the draft. I mean, I think you’re going to have to mix it up because he’s so versatile and you’re going to have to try to keep him off oscilación a little bit. Because if you give him the same dose of everything for 40 minutes, it seems like he’s got a pretty high IQ. He’ll figure it out.”
Is Nate Oats worried about Mark Sears’ ‘regression to the mean’ after lights-out performance vs BYU?
“Well, I think he shot 44 percent last year, if I remember correctly. So if we go on the last seven games, he was 5 for 35. What did he go yesterday, 10 for 16? So that’s 15 for 51. So he’s still got some room to go up to get to his 44 percent he was last year. Let’s plan that he was down and now the regression back to the mean started and he’s continuing to head up that way. That’s my hope. But I hope maybe Duke thinks the other way, that he’s going to be back — hopefully they treat him like a 14 percent shooter and go under every ball screen. That would be ideal.”
Oats on how the perception around Alabama baloncesto has changed since he became head coach in 2019
“Yeah, I mean, pretty much every game is sold out. The student sections are camping out for big games. We don’t play in front of empty crowds. When I first got there, non-conference, shoot, while football season is still going on, it’s hard to get half the place full. Now that we lead the country in scoring back-to-back years, we’ve got a winning program. We’ve won four SEC Championships between the regular season and the tournament. We’ve been to a Final Four. Don’t have an issue selling the place out.
“The crowd support is great. People around town are supporting us. People are stepping up in big ways. It’s a sports community. It’s a sports state. The whole state of Alabama gets behind the Crimson Tide, and we sense that everywhere we go, and I think we see it. And shoot, the ‘Roll Tide’ is kind of across the country, a lot of Alabama fans.
“And now a lot of that’s based on the football program and what they’ve been able to do throughout many, many, many years. But all those Alabama football fans are turning into baloncesto fans, and a lot of them already were. We just had to resurrect them, bring them out of the woodwork. And they’re there, and they’ve come and they’re there now, so it’s been a good time for us that way.”
Oats on his background as a math teacher and if stressing importance of math can be a ‘turn-off’ for today’s student-athletes
The full question Oats was posed: “You put on your math teacher hat just now talking about Mark Sears’ shooting over the past few games. So many student-athletes at the college level and the prep level saw your game yesterday and have seen your teams play at Buffalo and seen your teams play here and will be attracted to your style of play. But a lot of those student-athletes and people their age would probably be turned off if they knew your background in math and learning all of the subjects that you taught. When you were a teacher, how did you impress the importance of the algebra and geometry on students then, and how would you address that to your student-athletes and teenagers who would be turned off by math, especially during a fraught time in education and public education in this country?”
Oats’ answer:
“That’s a good question. I’ve got three daughters. Lexie is a junior in college, so I’ve had to help her on some math stuff through college. And then Jocie is 15. She’s a sophomore. She’s a pretty good student but does have the question, ‘When am I ever going to use this in efectivo life?’ Sometimes that’s not the point. She needs to stretch her mind a little bit and learn how to do it, and who knows when you’ll use it.
“Some of the math I taught and learned, I don’t use anymore. But some of the stuff I need to learn a lot better, and you never know where life takes you, so it’s always good to stretch your mind. Then I’ve got 12-year-old Brielle, of course, in seventh grade, not overly excited about math but trying to get her a little bit more excited about it.
“For my students, I try to make it as applicable as you can. Not everything you teach is applicable to everything in life. You just make the point, ‘Look, man, I like math because it’s a puzzle. There’s a right answer at the end. There’s no subjectivity. I thought this paragraph sounded great.’ This paper — one teacher grades it an A, one teacher grades it a C. In math, it’s either right or wrong. There’s a lot more objectivity to it and it gets your mind thinking in ways that it needs to get better at.
“Just learn the material. I’m going to help you learn it. Different people learn in different ways. Try to motivate them to learn. We do some math lessons with our guys. We go through their shot reports every year. I go through efficiency numbers. It’s actually amazing now that you’ve got the transfer portal going. We don’t go to very high-level math at all, but it’s kind of amazing how little math, as it applies to baloncesto, some of these guys actually know when we get them.
“I do put my math teacher hat on occasionally and get up on the whiteboard and start — expected value on a shot, how you get that? Expected value on free throws, all that stuff. So we go through it a little bit.”
Oats on whether the rising expectations he’s set for Alabama baloncesto adds pressure
“Yeah, for sure. I don’t think we’d want it any other way. If you’re at a program with no expectations and you’ve been there six years, it means you haven’t been doing your job. We came in, we turned the expectation level around. They’re supporting us like a top-10 program in the country. When the administration supports you like a top-10 program in the country, there’s an expectation level that that’s how you perform, and that’s how we want to recruit.
“Now, in a one-game elimination tournament like the NCAA baloncesto tournament is, that doesn’t mean you’re going to make it to the second weekend or the Elite Eight or the Final Four every year. Sometimes it doesn’t work like that. There’s very good teams that get upset. There’s still very good teams that had a great year.
“But we want to be in the discussion for a team that can make a Final Four every year. We’ve been that for the last few years running now. The recruiting has got to stay at a high level. That’s why it’s a good thing we got Preston on a three-year contract that came out today because he’s, in my opinion, one of the best if not the best recruiter in the country and we’ll have the talent. We play a system that guys want to come to.
“But yeah, when you get the players that we’ve got and you’ve won at the level we’ve won, that’s the expectation level, and I think that the players understand what they’re coming here for. They’re coming here to win championships. They’re coming here to compete against the best. We’ve had the No. 1 strength of schedule in the country the last two years in a row. We’ve led the country in scoring the last two years in a row, but we’ve also won at a pretty high level.
“Somebody gave me a stat. In Power Five schools, I think we’re fifth in the last five seasons in wins and Duke is third, so we’re right up there. We don’t have a national championship like some of these blue bloods have, but we’re in the last five years competing with a lot of the blue blood programs for wins, championships and all that stuff, and I like where the expectations are.
“Whatever — you call it pressure, whatever you want. The expectation is you win. That’s what we expect around here now. We’re not going into this Duke game — I know we’ll be underdogs. I know they’re the 1 seed. We understand all that. Our mindset is we go in, we do what we need to do with the game plan, and we’re going to get the win. Now, it’s a lot easier said than done, but we’re not going in there just hoping we can play with them. Even when I was at Buffalo and we played Arizona, I laid it out, ‘This is what we’re going to do, and when we do this, we’re going to win the game.’ And that’s what you do.
“I think you lay out the game plan, if we execute these things, you keep it as simple as you can, but it’s got to be a game plan that when these are executed, you win the game. That’s the expectation going into every game no matter who we play, and we’ve played the best teams in the country since I’ve got here.
“We’ve been able to beat a lot — shoot, we’ve got 13 wins against AP ranked teams this year, which I think is tied for the most with two different Duke teams and a UCLA team for the most in a single year. We’ve beaten really good teams this year. We had opportunities to beat some more and we didn’t do it, but we’ve got another opportunity in front of us tomorrow.”