Nate Oats and Jay Wright pass on Kentucky Wildcats Basketball coach opening

Now that we’ve averted catastrophe, again to who replaces John Calipari.

It’s no secret that many round Kentucky wish to see Nate Oats as the subsequent head coach. After guiding the Alabama Crimson Tide to their first-ever Closing 4 berth, Oats is about as sizzling of a candidate as there may be outdoors of Dan Hurley.

Nevertheless, there’s been some uncertainty about whether or not Kentucky is excited about Oats, a giant cause being his reported $18 million buyout to pry him from Alabama. And that’s earlier than he indicators a contract doubtless paying him north of $8 million yearly.

So, to no shock, Nate Oats to Kentucky isn’t occurring, and he confirmed as a lot Monday on Twitter.

The 49-year-old Oats has been a rising star within the faculty ranks since taking on at Buffalo in 2015. In his 4 seasons with the Bulls, he received the MAC Match thrice and claimed a pair of NCAA Match wins, most notably over 4-seed Arizona in 2018.

At Alabama, he’s led the Tide to a 117–54 by 5 seasons and is coming off a Closing 4 berth. That got here after a 31-6 season the prior yr that ended with a Candy 16 loss to San Diego State.

Oats isn’t the one one saying no to Kentucky.

Previous to Monday’s NCAA Nationwide Championship, CBS commentator Jay Wright gave a definitive “no” when requested about doubtlessly popping out of retirement for Kentucky.

Wright was at all times a longshot, much more so than Oats. Whereas he’s a Corridor of Fame coach, it’s been fairly evident that the 62-year-old Wright is completely satisfied in retirement and never prepared to leap again into a university panorama that he was already rising uninterested in earlier than NIL turned an enormous ordeal.

So there’s two off the board.