Woah: Alabama Head Coach Nate Oats Shoves Missouri’s Aidan Shaw In Heated Moment

Now THIS is college basketball!

The Missouri Tigers and Alabama Crimson Tide squared off Tuesday night in Tuscaloosa, and it didn’t take long for the sparks to fly. In fact, things got so heated that the game saw Tide head coach Nate Oats pushing a player from Mizzou.

In the first half with around seven-and-a-half minutes to go, tempers on both sides started to boil, and at one point, Tigers’ Aidan Shaw stepped into the altercation to back up a teammate. (RELATED: Not A Good Look: Clemson Head Coach Brad Brownell Shoves His Own Player During Embarrassing Blowout Upset For Tigers)

But, uh … Oats and his old-school attitude wasn’t playing that game, giving a shove to Shaw and, for extra effect, he yelled at him to “get out” to shoot him over to his bench. And everybody … Shaw, his teammates, the referees, Oats’ assistant coaches, the Alabama players … everybody looked shocked at what was going on.

And you can’t blame ’em at first. After all, this is an older coach pushing a college student-athlete, but then when you’re instantly reminded that the kid is over 18 and Oats is old school, it all makes sense.

WATCH:

What’s interesting about this whole sequence with Nate Oats was the referee seeing it and gives the whole ‘Whoa!’ reaction pic.twitter.com/8rBKiF42C0

— Trey Wallace (@TreyWallace_) January 17, 2024

If you think this is a bad look, I get it. The whole coach pushing a college kid is a bit sensitive, but I personally love this. It’s all representative of how passionate college basketball should be in this day and age of NIL and big money (not that I have anything against that, as y’all know).

I’m just saying. Seeing some fight from players and the old-school mentality from a coach, it’s quite refreshing.