Nate Oats didn’t take long on Friday when he took the podium at Coleman Coliseum and read the statistic that had been bothering him.
“We’ve got the one team coming in that we’ve got a losing record against since I’ve been here,” Oats stated.
After Oats took over as the Tide’s coach in 2019, Texas A&M has a 3-1 record against Alabama when they travel to Tuscaloosa for their 11 a.m. CT game on Saturday. The Aggies triumphed at Alabama in February 2020 and March 2022, and Texas A&M triumphed in Oats’ inaugural trip to Reed Arena in March of last year following the cancellation of the teams’ game at College Station in February 2021 due to inclement weather. Alabama only defeated Texas A&M once, in Nashville, to win the SEC tournament the previous year.
“We’ve got to do a better job than in the past when we’ve played these guys,” Oats stated.
This week, Oats has placed a strong focus on his SEC-leading Tide to minimize the Aggies’ effect on the offensive glass and to avoid turnovers. Texas A&M has the most offensive rebounds per game (17.7) among all 351 Division I schools in the country. At six feet seven inches tall, senior forward Andersson Garcia leads the Aggies in offensive rebounds (4.4 per game, third nationally).
With 9.1 total rebounds per game, Garcia leads the SEC, and Oats described him as “going hard.” “I adore seeing him perform. He is resilient. He is corporeal. He plays with intensity.
