LOS ANGELES — With Alabama in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament Elite Eight for the second time in program history, coach Nate Oats is invoking the spirit of a coach that has had quite the success in Tuscaloosa: Nick Saban.
When Saban was head coach of the Alabama football team, the seven-time national championship coach would infamously refer to “rat poison,” when his players would listen to the media talk about how good they were instead of listening to his criticism.
“I’m trying to get our players to listen to me instead of listening to you guys,” Saban said in 2017. “All that stuff you write about how good we are. It’s like poison. It’s like taking poison. Like ratpoison.”
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