The Basketball Podcast: E08 with Nate Oats on Offensive Basketball

In this week’s basketball coaching conversation, Alabama head coach Nate Oats joins the Basketball Podcast to discuss offensive basketball.

On March 27, 2019, Oats became the head coach of the Alabama Crimson Tide. At the conclusion of the 2020-2021 regular season, and in his second season as head coach, Oats won the SEC Coach of the Year award. The Tide won the SEC regular-season and tournament titles and made the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2018. They lost the Sweet Sixteen game in overtime to UCLA, 88–78.

Prior to arriving in Tuscaloosa, Oats spent four seasons at the helm of the University of Buffalo where he took the men’s basketball program to unprecedented heights. While there, Oats led the Bulls to a 96-43 (.691) record, three MAC Tournament Championships and three NCAA Tournament appearances, including reaching the round of 32 in 2018 and 2019. As a result, he was named the league’s Coach of The Year and National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) District 14 Coach of the Year in back-to-back seasons (2018 and 2019).

Oats was named head coach of the UB men’s program on April 11, 2015 after spending two seasons as the top assistant and recruiting coordinator for the Bulls. He came to Buffalo from Romulus High School in Michigan, where he taught and coached one of the top high school basketball programs in the region.

In the podcast, one of the brightest offensive minds in NCAA basketball discusses some of his offensive philosophies. Check out this video playbook to understand more about the offensive philosophies of Nate Oats: 

Nate Oats Podcast Quotes

“We don’t want our guys being robots . . . I want guys making plays.”

“Get to a corner. You will get more shots in the corner than you will standing on the wing because your man actually has to help off you.”

“Trust the system. The ball will find you.”

“We started charting paint touches and there was a pretty good correlation on at least one paint touch and our points per possession.”

“Some coaches are opposed to taking threes in transition . . okay, let me see the shot you got after you passed up the wide open three. “

“We tell our guys, I really have one goal on offense: to force one hard closeout that they can’t guard . . after that it’s over.”

“We are guaranteed to get an open shot once we get you in drive and kick basketball.”

“I’m not big on shot fake, jab step, all this other stuff . . if they’re closing on you, you either shoot, drive or an immediate ‘one more’ . . that’s it those are your only three options.”

“Every four minute time-out we’re going to tell you how we got scored on and then let’s talk about what we got do to fix it.”

Nate Oats Breakdown:

1:00 – Introduction
6:00 – Transferring Knowledge
7:30 – Offensive Ranking and Statistics
8:00 – Success on Offense
11:00 – Set Concepts, Philosophies, Break Options and Automatics
12:00 – The Concept of Tempo and Transition
16:00 – “Standing in the Corner” Concept
17:00 – “The Two Side Fast Break” Concept
18:00 – Moving the Point Guard to the Wing
20:00 – Training to be Point Guards
22:00 – What is Unselfish
23:00 – Defining Shot Selection
25:00 – Contested and Uncontested Shots
27:00- In-Game Offensive Charting
30:00 – Points per Possession
33:00 – Go and Attack
36:00 – Switching and Ball Movements
39:00 – Boomerang Concept
40:00 – Defensive In-Game Charting
43:00 – Giving Players Freedom to Play

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