LOUISVILLE, Ky. — It was a reasonable question: With the cloud hanging over the Alabama basketball team from a deadly shooting earlier this season, Coach Nate Oats was asked, had he and his players been able to enjoy their run to the second weekend of the N.C.A.A. men’s basketball tournament.
“Yeah, we’re having a blast,” Oats said of his team, which had garnered the top seed in the tournament. “We’re winning games. We know who we are. We’ve got a great group of guys that lean on each other, that have come close.”
After rolling to a pair of comfortable victories in the N.