Nate Oats uses his in-game interview to call out referees

The in-game head coach interviews during TV coverage of March Madness tend to be fairly tame, but every so often, a moody coach will not hold back about something.

That happened to Alabama’s Nate Oats on Sunday during his team’s second round game against Grand Canyon. Oats was angry that his team did not draw a foul call in the first half of the game, and he was angry enough that he got a technical foul for complaining about it.

Oats’ interview with TBS reporter Lauren Shehadi just so happened to come moments after that technical foul, which allowed him the opportunity to vent about the officials.

"There are two different refs but they got to have consistency within the crew."

— Alabama head coach Nate Oats is NOT happy with the officiating early on 😬😬 pic.twitter.com/NfNRARukPu

— CBS Sports (@CBSSports) March 24, 2024

“The calls down here aren’t equal to the calls down there,” Oats said. “They got soft touch calls twice back-to-back and we get fouls and there’s no call. There’s two different refs but they can have consistency within the crew. I’m not happy with them.”

Oats was a bit less angry than Hubert Davis was a day earlier, but this was still pretty unfiltered from the Alabama coach. It did not help that the fouls were helping to keep Grand Canyon right on Alabama’s heels for most of the first half.