Nate Oats: ‘The only mid-major schools we turn down are ones that aren’t good enough’

After the Miami (Ohio) debate over the last few weeks, followed by High Point head coach Flynn Clayman sounding off after an NCAA Tournament first-round win over Wisconsin, college basketball regular-season scheduling has been one of the hottest topics during March Madness. The mid-major schools claim that they try hard to schedule games with power-conference programs, but that those teams won’t play them.

Miami (Ohio) head coach Travis Steele and athletic director David Sayler have been vocal about the issues, and Matt Brown of Extra Points provided the proof on the RedHawks’ scheduling efforts.

After High Point’s win, Clayman used the opportunity to speak out on scheduling in both his postgame interview and his press conference.

“Nobody would play us. Just like they wouldn’t play Miami (Ohio),” Clayman said after the upset victory.”But they gotta play us in this tournament.”

“High Point and Miami (Ohio) are 2-0 in Quad 1 games,” Clayman added in the press conference. “We couldn’t get games. They couldn’t get games. Akron couldn’t get games. UNCW couldn’t get games. Belmont couldn’t get games. We won 22 of our 23 last games, and we didn’t move up one spot in the metrics.”

Now, the power-conference coaches are striking back.

Purdue head coach Matt Painter went into impassioned detail about the subject on Friday night, and so did Alabama head coach Nate Oats on Saturday.

Nate Oats:
“The only mid-major schools we turn down are ones that aren’t good enough… Some of the mid-major schools that we’re talking about not being able to find games played multiple non-D1 games. I’m not sure how hard you tried if you’re playing 3 non-D1 games.” pic.twitter.com/YvvFnT9xg0

— The Next Round (@NextRoundLive) March 21, 2026

“The only mid-major schools we turn down are the ones that aren’t good enough,” Oats said during an NCAA Tournament press conference on Saturday in Tampa. “Like, when we look at our buy games, they need to be good enough, because I don’t want to be playing Quad 4 games. To me, I want to play really good ones.”

Painter also referenced the NET rankings (which sort games into four quadrants) as a crucial aspect to scheduling and said that coaches who don’t use the NET to guide scheduling decisions are “bozos.”

“I think if you call around, some of the mid-major schools that we’re talking about not being able to find games played multiple non-Division I games; well, I’m not sure how hard you tried if you’re playing three non-Division I games,” Oats explained.

“So, I think you have to play games in your non-conference to be ready to play these NCAA Tournament games. Like, my last year at Buffalo, we won at West Virginia, we won at Syracuse, we played at Marquette when they had (Markus) Howard, who destroyed us, but we lost,” Oats continued. “But we played at Southern Illinois, who was really good, we played at St. Bonaventure; we played very good teams. We were ready to play in the NCAA (Tournament). The year before, we lost at Syracuse, we played other high-major teams, so when we get the Arizona game, we’ve already played high-major teams.”

“You can whine and complain about high-majors not playing you on a neutral (court),” Oats added. “They’re not going to do it. It doesn’t really work that way. When I was at Buffalo, I didn’t complain about it. We’d just go play them. Take the money, get bought, that’s where you’re going to play them. Play them. If you lose, you at least got experience playing against high-major teams that you’re going to have to play in the NCAA Tournament if you’re going to try to beat them. So, I think it will happen. I think it’s going to be harder for some mid-major teams to make deep runs. It’s going to be harder for a mid-major team like us at Buffalo to be like a 6-seed, but I think there’s still going to be upsets in this tournament.”

Oats and Alabama will take on Texas Tech in second-round action on Sunday night with a trip to the Sweet 16  on the line.