re: Alabama Basketball Non-Conference Schedule

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He turned down Kentucky. He didn't do that without calling his buddy Pitino, who is pretty open about the fact that leaving Kentucky is one of his biggest regrets, to talk about the job. I'm pretty confident that any coach who turns down Kentucky is satisfied that they can compete for a title just as well at their current job.

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That was before rev sharing details came out and the price tag on individual players went up. KY put more rev share into basketball than any other SEC team IIRC. The gap has widened between Bama and Ky in terms of resources in just a couple years. It also was at a different stage in his family life. His answers were pretty clearly tilted towards family when he talked about staying.

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He’s not an NBA guy

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I get that he hasn’t worked in the NBA, but multiple players/talking heads have been quoted as saying NBA teams view Oats as running an NBA style program in college. One NBA staff member was quoted as saying Oats’ program is like the 31st NBA team IIRC (they were obviously joking, but making a point that Oats hires NBA guys, studies NBA programs every offseason, has looked to replicate many of the concepts).