Mike Eades, the coordinator of men’s basketball officials for both the SEC and American conferences, told Alabama coach Nate Oats that the ending of the Tide’s 83-82 win Saturday night over Houston was officiated correctly.
“I think the right no-call was made,” Oats said during his weekly appearance on the “Hey Coach Show” on Monday night. “I talked to our director of officials who is also The American Conference’s director of officials. We pull from the same officials. He said the officials got the call right.”
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Alabama guard JD Davison swatted away the ball near the rim with one second left to deny Houston, a member of the AAC, a last-second scoring chance. Houston coach Kelvin Sampson and guard Marcus Sasser followed officials off the court arguing goal-tending should have been called. A police officer eventually had to hold Sasser back.
At the opposite end of the court, Sampson’s son Kellen, an assistant coach, kicked chairs on Houston’s bench in Coleman Coliseum as he walked toward the visitors’ locker room. Forward Reggie Chaney followed by also kicking a chair and tipping over a trash can that was later cleaned up by teammate Jamal Shead.
“Shoot, it was controversial,” Oats said Monday night. “I would have been upset if I was on [Kelvin Sampson’s] end. I would have been trying to get an explanation, just like he was. That’s what he was doing. I respect it. He apologized for the behavior of some of their staff and players and whatnot.”
Alabama athletics director Greg Byrne tweeted Sunday night that Kelvin Sampson called both Byrne and Oats to apologize. Kellen Sampson also posted an apology to Twitter.
“I’ve got a lot of respect for him. We talked,” Oats said. “I had been down there to visit them before [during the 2016 Final Four] — just respect the job they do.”
Another moment from the postgame went viral when Oats held out his hand for Kelvin Sampson to shake it after the buzzer, but Sampson instead looked for the officials. Oats kept his hand out until eventually lowering it.
“I made sure he understood, the whole handshake thing, I wasn’t trying to show him up,” Oats said. “We both said, ‘Look, we both got games Tuesday, let’s move on.’ Heat of the moment thing. They got a good program. They do things the right way. We’ve got a good program, do things the right way. It came down to literally the last second and didn’t go their way on a controversial no-call.
“We ended up talking about our team, his team and had a basketball talk, so it was good.”
Alabama (8-1) plays at Memphis on Tuesday night.
Mike Rodak is an Alabama beat reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @mikerodak.