Nate Oats channels Nick Saban's 'rat poison' talk as former Alabama football coach provides support
LOS ANGELES — With Alabama in the NCAA men's basketball tournament Elite Eight for the second time in program history, coach Nate Oats is invoking the spirit of a coach that has had quite the success in Tuscaloosa: Nick Saban.
When Saban was head coach of the Alabama football team, the seven-time national championship coach would infamously refer to "rat poison," when his players would listen to the media talk about how good they were instead of listening to his criticism.
"I'm trying to get our players to listen to me instead of listening to you guys," Saban said in 2017. "All that stuff you write about how good we are. It's like poison. It's like taking poison. Like ratpoison."
That phrase would be synonymous with Saban for the remainder of his tenure with the Crimson Tide. Even though he is no longer coaching at Alabama, Oats is still using that same mentality Saban had. While the basketball team is in its second Elite Eight, there is still much to accomplish this season, including its first trip to the Final Four.
"This doesn't happen very often. We only have been to one other Elite Eight in the history of Alabama, that was 20 years ago. You don't want to take this for granted," Oats said on Friday. "I told my players − Coach Saban calls it rat poison all the time. If you wanted you can get on your phone and look at social media and type your name in and see hundreds of people talking about how great you were.
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"But it has nothing to do with preparing to play the next game. I told them, if you want to get to a Final Four you've got to be disciplined enough to put that rat poison out, get locked in on what we need to do for the next 24 hours, be prepared to beat this team. Because anything else is a total distraction," he added.
Oats added his team must remain focused if it wants to beat Clemson on Saturday. He said if players would rather spend time on social media rather than recovering or game planning, "I don't know how serious you are about winning."
"I've got to be disciplined to get myself ready to play. The players need to be disciplined to get themselves ready to play. And once the ball goes up, we've got 40 minutes of being locked in, super intense," he said.
Texts from Nick Saban
As much as Oats tries to invoke the spirit of Saban, he's also been a resource during this tournament run.
Oats said that Saban has texted him, which might come off as a shock to people given Saban's level of uncertainty with technology. Oats said Saban texted him something along the lines of having a "next play" mentality in the tournament. The basketball coach added it's a great benefit to have some as talented as Saban for guidance.
"He's a resource guy. He still has an office on campus. I'm going to use that resource," Oats said. "I think he's the best team sports coach in the modern history of team sports and college athletics. Great to have there."
Alabama will play Clemson Saturday night in the West Regional final with the winner advancing to the Final Four.