CLEVELAND (93.7 The Fan) – There is a confidence that comes with being the highest scoring team in Division 1 in a league that just set a record for number of entrees into the NCAA Tournament. They beat the number one team in the nation three times this season. How are they reacting to playing the champion of the Horizon League?
Alabama did play close games against a pair of non-Power Four teams at home early in the season. They beat Arkansas State by nine and McNeese by eight. They won by nine at North Dakota in December.
They’re saying the right things. Crimson Tide head coach Nate Oats did play a couple of games against Robert Morris in the mid-2010s while coaching at Buffalo, splitting the pair of matchups.
“They're good,” Oats said. “We'd played them before when I was an assistant. I mean, Coach Toole does a great job.”
Oats also said he spent a number of summers on the Robert Morris campus working the famous ‘Five Star Camps’. He believes that gives him a familiarity with the program.
He also credited how hard the Colonials play while watching them.
“(Amarion) Dickerson, he was Defensive Player of the Year in the Horizon, which is a really good league,” Oats said. “They've got the Player of the Year (Alvaro Folgueiras) and then the Defensive Player of the Year, and neither of those two are their leading scorer. And then their leading scorer, Kam Woods, is from
Alabama, and (Alabama All-American) Mark (Sears) played with him in AAU growing up and stuff.”
“They're good. To have the leading scorer, the Defensive Player of the Year in your conference and the Player of the Year in your conference be three different guys I think says a lot about the depth and the talent that they've got, and our guys need to recognize that. I think they do.”
Oats went on to say about Dickerson that he’s a hard-playing, elite athlete that makes a lot of plays.
“He's really good on the help side, coming over, blocking shots,” Oats said. “We've shown our guys video of it. They've got to be aware that he's there. He blocks, steals, effort, intensity. He's good. Now, we've played some pretty good defensive players in the SEC, as well, but he's good.”
Sears called Woods a ‘big-time scorer’ and said he was known for his scoring in high school.
“I still think he's a big-time scorer, so we've got to really respect him when we go out there on that court,” Sears said.
Their last four opponents were Florida, Kentucky, Auburn and Tennessee. How will his team approach and then react when facing Robert Morris? Tip Friday at 12:40p in Cleveland.