In seven seasons as the head coach at Alabama, Nate Oats has gone through several assistant coaches and frequently had to replenish his staff.
The departures he has undergone have been positive reflections on the program, as all of his previous assistants left for head coaching jobs, and most have found success upon doing so. So many assistants have become head coaches, in fact, that Oats’ coaching tree is one of the most impressive among college basketball coaches his age.
The 2022-23 Alabama team, for example, has seen all of its assistant coaches get head coaching jobs and experience recent success. That staff consisted of Bryan Hodgson, Antoine Pettway and Charlie Henry.
Hodgson originally left Alabama to take the head job at Arkansas State, where he went 45-28 over two seasons and won the Sun Belt Conference regular-season championship in 2025. He became a national name this year after being hired at South Florida, winning both the regular-season and tournament championships in the American Conference.
In his one year with the program, Hodgson led the Bulls to their first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2012, and only their fourth in program history. His success was enough for him to get hired as the head coach at Providence after just one year with South Florida.
“He’s done a really good job recruiting where he’s at,” Oats said before facing Hodgson and South Florida this year. “They played us really tough last year when he came in here with Arkansas State.”
Pettway, meanwhile, is familiar to Alabama as both a coach and a player.
After playing for the Crimson Tide for four years from 2000-04, he worked with the program as an assistant under previous head coaches Anthony Grant and Avery Johnson. Pettway stuck with the team after Oats was hired and was then named head coach of Kennesaw State in 2023.
After finishing 15-16 in his first year with the program, Pettway saw steady improvement each year and went 40-28 over the last two seasons. Pettway especially made a name for himself this year by going 21-14 and leading the Owls to their third conference tournament championship in program history and an NCAA Tournament berth.
“He wants his place to win a national championship,” Oats said. “Some guys, once you kind of get to know them in business, as soon as they leave a place, they want that place to do poorly for a selfish reason. He’s the opposite.”
Henry, who was named Georgia Southern’s head coach in 2023, saw initial struggles with the program, which was floundering when he was hired. This year, however, he led the Eagles to their first 21-win season since 2019 under Mark Byington.
Georgia Southern just barely missed out on an automatic bid in the NCAA Tournament by losing the Sun Belt tournament championship to Troy. An appearance in the tournament would have been their first this century, making this season a clear sign of a positive trajectory for the program.
Other head coaches who came from Oats’ ranks include Ryan Pannone, who spent two years with the Crimson Tide before taking the job at Arkansas State in 2025. He concluded his first year at the job going 20-12 and losing in the third round of the Sun Belt tournament.
Austin Claunch was hired by Alabama in 2023 after going 90-61 across five years as head coach of Nicholls State in the Southland Conference. After a lone season with the Crimson Tide, Claunch was hired as head coach of UTSA.
Claunch inherited a struggling program in San Antonio, which has seen two 20-win seasons this century and as many NCAA Tournament appearances in that time.
The Roadrunners finished 12-19 in their first year under Claunch, but struggled mightily this season. The 2025-26 team went 5-25 and finished in the bottom 30 of KenPom rankings.
Though the program is currently reeling, Claunch’s history as a head coach suggests he is prepared for the job and can still find the success that his colleagues in the Alabama coaching tree have found.
“He did a really good job as the head coach at Nicholls,” Oats said. “I thought he did a really good job with the players, culture, getting guys to be good teammates, getting them to play hard, play together.”
