How a call with Nick Saban helped save Alabama basketball’s Final Four season

Alabama basketball was struggling late in the season. The Crimson Tide were having trouble on defense and seemed to be limping to the finish line, with a one-and-done finish in the SEC Tournament.

Head coach Nate Oats got on the phone after that loss to Florida, calling former Tide football coach Nick Saban.

“I think just about every year that he won a national championship they lost at some point during the year,” Oats said Thursday. “Football’s obviously different, there’s a lot more games in basketball. But this year, they lost the Texas game and he did an unbelievable job of getting the season turned around. So I called him, like, how do we get this thing turned around this late?”

The Crimson Tide got on the right track after the phone call. Alabama drew a No. 4 seed in the NCAA Tournament, took care of business in the first weekend, then upset No. 1 North Carolina and beat Clemson to make the program’s first Final Four.

On Thursday, Oats spoke on the advice Saban gave him.

“He watches all the games,” Oats said. “(Saban said) ‘Coach, guys gotta go to the next play.’ We talked about this as a group. We’re going to make this real simple. We’re going come in and we’re just, ‘Next.’ It goes all kinds of different ways.”

According to Oats, getting players to focus on the next thing has been a major help throughout the tournament run. He said Alabama think about it in different ways, from the next play itself, to the next action within a given play, to the next game.

“I think it’s a great philosophy in life,” Oats said. “There’s a lot of adversity you hit in life. Move on to what’s the next best action. We go through all kinds of things in life. Move on to the next one and make that the best one.”

The call with Oats wasn’t the first time Saban has helped the Alabama basketball team this season. The retired coach spoke to the group in February.

Mouhamed Dioubate had previously met Saban during his visit to Alabama while being recruited. On Thursday, he described the message from the man who won six national titles in Tuscaloosa.

“He was just telling us about how the little things matter and how the little things aren’t so little,” Dioubate said. “He was just telling us how important it was for us to stick together as a team when adversity hits, for us to stay together. I was honored to be in the presence of a guy like that.”

Alabama forward Grant Nelson reiterated his teammate’s sentiment.

“It’s just amazing having a guy like that who is one of the greatest college coaches, period, of all time,” Nelson said. “It was a great thing for us as a team to hear from someone else and just kid of his experience, his journey and what he thought. He’s obviously one of the greatest of all time, so it was just great seeing him.”