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Friday, November 13, 2015
Basketball season preview
Volume 65 No. 32
STUDENT OF THE GAME
YUSONG SHI, THE SPECTRUM
Nate Oats has coached basketball for 18 years. He’s waited behind Bobby Hurley. Now he’s ready to build Buffalo by himself. BY QUENTIN HAYNES SENIOR SPORTS EDITOR
his debut as the head coach of the Buffalo men’s basketball team, Oats is ready to be the teacher. Oats was named Buffalo’s head coach after serving as an assistant under Bobby Hurley the past two seasons. After Hurley bolted for Arizona State last April, it was Oats who Athletic Director Danny White propped up as the man who would provide stability for a team coming off its first-ever Mid-American Conference Championship and NCAA Tournament appearance. But nothing has been stable for Oats’ team or family since then. Star point guard Shannon Evans joined Hurley at Arizona State after a heavily publicized and dramatized transfer and spat with
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Oats has to shoulder the responsibility of a Division-I program and his own family. It would be a lot for any man to handle. But based on his journey to this point, Oats just might be the man capable of keeping everything in tact.
A desire to coach Growing up in Watertown, Wisconsin, Oats lived in a community of just under 20,000 people. He describes it best as a “classic, middle America city.” It was a community of people that looked after each other, both children and adults. It was where Oats and his love for sports grew. In middle school, basketball captured his interest. He was a guard who did a bit of everything. But Oats will tell you that he
I always wanted to out work people. You get out what you put in and the most prepared teams often win. I knew whenever I got into this position, that my teams were going to play tough defense, they were going to hustle and they were going to be prepared. Nate Oats, Buffalo men’s basketball head coach
White. Same for top recruits Torian Graham and Maurice O’Field who also joined Hurley. Then MAC Player of the Year Justin Moss, who Oats coached and mentored at Romulus, was caught stealing from a dorm room over the summer and expelled from UB. And just days before Oats begins his firstever season as a D-I head coach, doctors diagnosed his wife Crystal with lymphoma. Oats goes between taking his three young daughters to school in the morning to Bulls practice to taking care of his wife undergoing chemotherapy treatment. He knows he’s facing an uphill battle. Between roster changes, the transition from assistant to head coach and his wife’s health,
that allowed me to stay in the game and be around the game I love.” Oats started with a coaching DVD. “The Basics,” as he would call it. In a desire to know more about the game, Oats went to the library, taking out a book on simple coaching schemes. Offense, defense, fundamentals. Whatever was available, Oats would get his hands on. Oats received several scholarships on the Division-II and Division-III college level, but opted to join his father, an administrator, at Maranatha Baptist University in Watertown. Oats balanced a year of football, basketball and school, but also kept his eyes on coaching one day. “I was always there talking to the coaches, just looking to know all the little things that we did out there,” Oats said. “I was almost like another coach – making sure we had everything we needed on the floor.” After his career was over, he remained with Maranatha and accepted his first coaching position as an assistant. After three years on the bench, Oats’ desire to move up was apparent. After hearing that the Maranatha head coach was retiring, Oats eyed the position from a far. But he waited. His father and the board of directors discussed an exit plan for the coach and Oats kept his ear to the ground and waited for a result. He had a plan, he experimented with the playbook, but it was all for naught. Both the head coach and administration agreed to a two-year plan, locking down the job for the foreseeable future. But it was Oats’ first brush with leading his own program. “I wanted to be the next guy,” Oats said. “I knew that his time was coming to an end and I wanted that position. Back then, I at least wanted to explain why I deserved the position … Let them know that I was serious about the job. He ended up with two more years and I felt a way about it. I really didn’t get the sense that I was getting the job. I was only 25 years old at the time.”
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Wisconsin-Whitewater head coach Pat Miller was sweating bullets, nervous about the prospects of coaching his first-ever conference tournament game. He wanted to dot his I’s and cross his T’s before the big game. Only, he forgot the most important thing. “We get on the bus, I look and lo and behold, I forgot my bag that included my suit,” Miller said. “Forty-five minutes before one of the biggest coaching games of my career and I had no suit, no pants, no nothing.” He looked around to his assistants, hoping each coach could provide at least one item. Maybe one had an extra pair of shoes, one had an extra pair of pants – maybe he could throw some semblance of a professional outfit together. But as he went to each of his coaches, he began to think it wasn’t going to happen. And then he approached Nate Oats. Oats smiled and pulled out an extra suit, pair of shoes and a tie. It was a microcosm of Nate Oats’ life and coaching career. “He was always so prepared,” Miller said. “Whether it was an extra suit, or coaching, there was never a moment where I thought he was unprepared. He had an additional suit that day and the first thought was relief, but my second thought was ‘Why am I not surprised?’” Speak to anyone who’s met Oats and they’ll tell you the same thing. His combination of readiness and energy is radiant and contagious. The desire to be one step ahead and outwork others is what made him successful travelling throughout the Midwest recruiting and turning Romulus High School into a basketball powerhouse outside Detroit, Michigan. “I always wanted to out work people,” Oats said. “You get out what you put in and the most prepared teams often win. I knew whenever I got into this position, that my teams were going to play tough defense, they were going to hustle and they were going to be prepared.” And now, after 18 years of being a student of the game, and just before he makes
wasn’t that good. “I was never that good,” Oats said, chuckling. “I was a starter, started my sophomore, junior and senior year and we went 24-0 and won the division. I had some moments on the floor, too. I had a couple games where I hit about four or five threes in a row. My best role was defending the opponent’s best player.” As he continued to get closer to his final season of school and the dream of playing basketball at a professional level seemed further and further away, Oats looked to stay involved in the game he loved. He began to look at coaching. “I knew I wasn’t going to be an NBA player, so I started watching coaching more and more,” Oats said. “It became something
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BSU holds walkout to show solidarity with students at the University of Missouri
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Opinion on the upcoming men’s and women’s seasons
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Full roster breakdown for the men and women