No. 9 Alabama lost to Oregon 83-81 in the Players Era Festival championship game on Saturday. The loss dropped the Crimson Tide to 6-2 and after the last of three games in Las Vegas, Alabama was head coach Nate Oats spoke to reporters. Here’s everything he said.

Oats’ opening statement…

“That’s a tough way to lose a game. Our turnovers kind of haunted us here in Vegas last game and this game, and the points from turnovers are 17-5. It’s hard to overcome that. We have to find a way to take better care of basketball. It’s all of them. Everyone on the team except Wrightsell turned the ball over tonight. We had multiple people with multiple sales. Turnovers are 15-8 and points are 17-5 off turnovers. It’s hard to overcome that. I think that was the biggest problem.

“We still had problems protecting the post and then we didn’t shoot particularly well at times tonight. But we will have games like that. We need to be able to overcome some poor shooting nights and get to the offensive boards. I think we managed that pretty well. We had 15 O-Boards, but they had 12. So that’s not what we wanted to do out here, but that’s a good team. We have to learn from it. We need to play better and regroup for Carolina on Wednesday.”

Oatmeal on Alabama’s experience at the Players Era Festival…

“We played against three really good teams who all had different styles. We learned different things from each of the three teams. I think the tournament coordinators did a great job. It was great to be at MGM and stay in the place you play. So I enjoyed the tournament. Houston is one of the toughest teams in the country and we fought with them. Rutgers has really talented people. We need to figure out how to protect elite players a little better. And then Oregon is just an overall really good, well-rounded, solid basketball team that did a great job tonight. We have to take better care of the ball. So three really good teams played. We learned a lot about ourselves, learned what we need to fix, and then we go back to the drawing board and fix some things.”

Oats about Latrell Wrightsell’s status…

“He has a lower leg injury. They’re worried about his Achilles tendon, which obviously wouldn’t be good. As soon as we get back, they’ll have him examined. So let’s get an MRI and see what we have. We keep our fingers crossed.”

After an 0:18 start, Jarin Stevenson’s problems are starting to subside…

“I think this is the Jarin we were looking for this year. It’s great that he persevered and boosted his confidence. He made big plays. I thought he was really good for us on defense tonight. He made three three-pointers tonight, some obviously in the game before. He’s going to be a big part of what we do this year and I’m really happy for him, he’s done it. So we have to keep building it. I mean, he’s supposed to be a freshman this year.

“If you look back at the time when Clowney was with us, Clowney had a similar start and then I don’t remember exactly who he was, maybe 0 for 17, 1 for 17, 1 for… 19, something like that Way to start the year, hitting four before the first media timeout against South Dakota State in his first year. Similar start to Clowney. But now he’s recovered from that and hopefully that will get him going because he shot pretty well. And he had a positive defensive impact. That’s why I think he really helps us defensively too.”

Oats on Alabama’s offensive record with five players in double figures…

“We are pretty balanced. We had five guys in double figures. We tried to get the ball moving. To be honest, we got 21 assists from some of our better shooters on a poor shooting night. That’s why I thought we moved the ball well. If we hadn’t turned the ball over 15 times it would have been good. But we want it to spread out a little bit.

“We had five guys in double figures and I think there are other guys – Grant would be one who will probably be in double figures more often. Cliff can of course also be a goalscorer for us. Derrion had games. Mo had big games. We have several guys capable of scoring in double figures. To be able to score 81 points even though we didn’t shoot particularly well and still get it 15 times, I think it’s a testament to the depth that we have. But we have to use our depth and not turn the ball over.”

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