Alabama Crimson Tide coach Nate Oats is unimpressed with how the NCAA Selection Committee determined the official bracket for this year’s national tournament.
On Sunday, March 15, Selection Sunday was held for the 2026 March Madness, which determined all 68 teams that will be playing for the national title, including programs that still have a chance through the First Four round.
Oats and company will open their national postseason run on Friday, March 20, against coach Speedy Claxton’s Hofstra Pride in the first round of the Midwest Region on neutral grounds, Benchmark International Arena in Tampa, Florida.
However, in a report by Emilee Smarr on X/Twitter, Oats was asked about his team’s selection, when he expressed his displeasure.
“Hofstra’s good. I can’t say I love the draw,” Oats was quoted as saying.
The Alabama-based program holds an overall record of 23-9 (13-5 SEC) and ended this year’s conference play as the No. 2 seed in the 2026 SEC standings. The Crimson Tide were eliminated in the quarterfinals of this year’s conference tournament by a mere point, 80-79, in a gut-wrenching loss to coach Chris Beard’s Ole Miss Rebels. Now, Alabama sets its sights on a much bigger prize, the national title.
Nate Oats’ Initial 2025-26 Season Plan Was Not Followed, But Is Optimistic Nonetheless
In the same report, published on Tuscaloosanews.com, Nate Oats was also asked how he feels about his team’s current standing.
This is because Oats had an initial plan for his Crimson Tide to win both the SEC regular season championship and conference tournament title this year, neither of which happened. Still, Oats believes his team will do better in the 2026 March Madness.
“It’s not easy to do what we’ve done. Having said that, I didn’t plan on being a four seed this year. Our players didn’t plan on it. So to me, it’s been a little bit of a disappointment at this point. Now, we can make up a lot of excuses for why we didn’t have the year we wanted to have, and some of them are legitimate reasons. At the end of the day, we didn’t win enough games for what we expect to win around here, but we can fix all that here over the next two weeks if we lock in and play well,” Oats said.
Read More: LOOK: Nate Ament Suffers Nasty Injury As Nate Oats’ Alabama Complete Impressive Comeback Win vs Rick Barnes’ Tennessee
Also Read: Why Is Charles Bediako Still With Alabama Even After NCAA Ineligibility? Head Coach Nate Oats’ Decision Explained
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