Friday Headlines: Why Nate Oats passed on Kentucky Basketball

Posted by Admin July 12, 2024 Basketball

As expected, Kentucky basketball’s head coaching search earlier this spring was discussed nation-wide. The departure of John Calipari and the person who would replace him was the top headline for many media outlets for several weeks.

One name that was in the hat but quickly removed was Alabama basketball head coach Nate Oats.

While many Kentucky fans seemed to be under the impression Oats wouldn’t turn down the opportunity of a lifetime, it simply wasn’t an option for he and his family.

Oats sat down with CBS Sports college basketball analyst Seth Davis for a feature on Bleacher Report and explained why he wasted zero time to remove himself from the UK coaching conversation.

He went into detail on how the move would’ve made a large impact on his family and that just wasn’t an ideal situation. Oats also discussed his relationship with Alabama’s boosters and fanbase after reaching the program’s first Final Four (in the same school year football head coach Nick Saban retired) in history.

Let’s not disregard the fact that Oats has quite the roster at Alabama right now, too, and is set up to make a run at the national championship this season. They’re the consensus No. 1 in most preseason rankings and will bring back Second Team All-American Marcus Sears.

While Oats would have probably been in line to have a lot of success at Kentucky, it’s hard to blame a person for doing what feels best for their family while also remaining in a pretty strong position to contend for national titles.