Is Alabama’s Nate Oats coming to Kentucky for a job rehearsal?
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Preview: No. 17 Kentucky vs. No. 13 Alabama
Click below to read more of the Herald-Leader’s and Kentucky.com’s preview coverage ahead of Saturday’s Kentucky-Alabama men’s basketball game in Rupp Arena.
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It’s a good time to be Nate Oats.
When the Alabama men’s basketball coach brings the No. 13 Crimson Tide (19-7, 11-2 SEC) to Lexington to face No. 17 Kentucky (18-8, 8-5 SEC) Saturday at 4 p.m. at Rupp Arena, Bama will carry a one-game lead over No. 5 Tennessee (20-5, 10-3 SEC) in the Southeastern Conference standings.
The Crimson Tide are pursuing their third SEC men’s hoops regular-season title in the past 4 seasons.
Since Alabama made the hire of Oats, 49, before the 2019-20 season, the former Buffalo Bulls head man has done something no one could have foreseen: He has made Bama — Nick Saban’s Alabama! — the SEC’s most-successful men’s hoops program.
Since Oats moved to Tuscaloosa, overall wins by SEC programs are: 1. Alabama 111; 2. Arkansas 108; 3. Auburn 107; 3. Tennessee 107; 5. Kentucky 100.
Regular-season conference wins by SEC programs since Bama hired Oats: 1. Alabama 60; 2. Kentucky 57; 3. Tennessee 54; 4. Auburn 53; 5. Florida 46.
Since 2019-20, Alabama has won more SEC regular season crowns (two) and more SEC Tournament titles (two) than any other league program.
That Oats’ success at Alabama has come via a metrics-oriented, high-octane offensive style — Alabama is first in NCAA Division I in scoring (90.1 points a game) and No. 2 in 3-pointers a game (11.8) — has only enhanced the level of intrigue in the coach.
Though neither Kentucky nor Louisville presently have head coaching vacancies, that has not stopped frustrated segments of the fan bases at both UK and U of L from turning wistful eyes toward the Alabama coach.
A thread on the CatsIllustrated.com premium message board proposing Oats as a future UK coach had 95 replies as of Thursday morning. Meanwhile, over at CardinalAuthority.com, enthusiasm for Oats as a possible replacement for Kenny Payne seems to be accelerating.
So when Oats works the sideline at Rupp Arena on Saturday, could he be auditioning for a job in the commonwealth?
Unless John Calipari has just tired of trying to live up to the exacting standards of coaching basketball at Kentucky and chooses to leave, there’s all but no chance Oats will be coaching in Lexington in 2024-25.
The cost to UK to buy out Calipari’s contract after this season would be around $34 million. Meanwhile, according to the Tuscaloosa News, Oats would have a $10 million buyout after the current season to get out of his contract to leave Alabama.
For Kentucky, that could mean an expenditure of $44 million before it even began putting together a salary package for Oats.
That’s not going to happen — nor should it.
As for Louisville, it will owe Payne a multi-million-dollars buyout if, as seems likely, it lets the coach go after a second straight season of struggle. Following Wednesday night’s dispiriting 72-50 home loss to Notre Dame, Payne is 12-46 as U of L head man.
According to the Courier Journal, Payne’s buyout will be $8 million if he is dismissed before April 1 of this year, and $6 million if the coach is ousted after that date.
While Oats’ appeal to Louisville seems obvious, it’s not clear that it would be a smart move in the current college sports landscape to give up a head coaching job in one of the “Big Two” conferences, the SEC and Big Ten, for a job at a school whose conference, the ACC, appears to have a far less-certain future.
There are some questions that would come with Oats.
It is not apparent that his metrics-driven “layups and 3s” approach to offense is built for NCAA Tournament success. He’s yet to lead Alabama past the round of 16, and has lost to a lower-seeded team in all three of his tourney appearances for Bama.
Last season, as the No. 1 overall seed in the tourney, Alabama got bounced by San Diego State in the region semifinals when the Crimson Tide couldn’t buy a trey (3-of-27) and wound up shooting 23 of 71 overall.
Of course, Alabama’s 2022-23 season was haunted by the basketball program’s linkage to an alleged murder committed last Jan. 15. Now-former Alabama player Darius Miles and his friend, Michael Davis, were ultimately indicted by a grand jury on a capital murder charge after a shootout in downtown Tuscaloosa claimed the life of a 23-year-old mother, Jamea Jonae Harris.
A police detective testified in a pretrial hearing that Oats’ best player, Brandon Miller, transported Miles’ gun to the scene of the incident. It was subsequently reported that a third Alabama player, Jaden Bradley, had also been present during the shootout. Neither Miller nor Bradley were charged with any legal infraction.
Whatever one thinks of the propriety of Alabama allowing Miller and Bradley to play last season without interruption, that is an administrative decision well above the pay grade of a coach. But in his public handling of a challenging situation, Oats often seemed way out of his depth.
That made one wonder if Oats could handle the public relations responsibilities at a school where the men’s basketball coach is under a high degree of scrutiny as the normal course of things.
On Saturday at Rupp Arena, Oats can ask Calipari how much fun that can be.
This story was originally published February 22, 2024 at 12:45 PM.
