The Alabama men’s and women’s basketball teams received a warm welcome from the crowd at Coleman Coliseum Friday night at the fifth annual Tide Tipoff, the teams’ first public appearance of the season. The brief event consisted of team introductions, a three-point contest and concluded with a dunk contest.

It was not any of the players showcasing their skills that stole the show, however, but rather the outfit of men’s coach Nate Oats. Oats donned a plaid jacket to pay homage to former Alabama basketball coach Wimp Sanderson who regularly wore a plaid sports coat while coaching.

“Wimp has been good to me since I’ve been here, so I asked him if he had a sport coat that he thought would be good for it,” Oats said. “It’s a tad big, but I thought it got the message across to where we are winning games like they did in the Wimp era.”

The competitions began with a three-point contest which the duo of freshman Jaylen Forbes and sophomore Brittany Davis hit a combined 16 shots out of 30 to beat three other pairs. In the dunk contest, junior Herbert Jones beat out fellow junior Alex Reese in the finals to win the contest.

Even though the event was enjoyable for the fans and players, Oats said the Crimson Tide is ready to face other competition with “a real scoreboard.”

The scorekeeping will start on Sunday as Alabama will take part in a closed-door scrimmage against Jacksonville State, which is followed by a charity exhibition against Georgia Tech on October 27th at 12 p.m.

“We want to play hard,” Oats said on his expectations for this season. “I don’t have any set number of wins or all this, but I want us to be the hardest-playing team out there every night and if we are not, then I don’t feel like I’m doing my job. That’s going to be the expectation set.”