Alabama head coach Nate Oats never saw debris being thrown. He found out about the situation unfolding during Alabama basketball’s loss to Auburn Saturday in Tuscaloosa from Crimson Tide athletics director Greg Byrne.

“Administration told me somebody threw something on the floor and if they did it again, we were gonna get a T in a game that was gonna be tight,” Oats said after the game. “Not really sure what the score was at that point. We weren’t trying to give away free points.”

With Alabama down by three points in the second half of Saturday’s game, Oats took to the PA microphone at Coleman Coliseum. He admonished the fans in the arena to stop throwing debris onto the court, and to “knock it off” during the Iron Bowl of Basketball.

Oats said after the game that he was disappointed if the culprit was one of Alabama’s fans.

“Doesn’t help us win,” Oats said. “Not sure what they’d be throwing something on the floor for anyways. That’s just asinine. Don’t do dumb stuff. I tell our players not to do dumb stuff and get flagrants and give the other team free points. We’re trying to win the basketball game on the scoreboard.”

Fans throwing debris was an issue throughout the college football season. LSU was fined $250,000 for an incident during its loss to Alabama.

Oats said he had never before had to make an announcement like Saturday’s at the college level.

“I was a high school coach for 11 years, so we had brawls break out in the stands back in high school,” Oats said. “I had not had to do that in college yet though. Takes one person to throw something. Had our attendance at 13,500 here, so 13,499 were hopefully really well behaved. But it takes one person to ruin it for everybody, so let’s make sure we don’t have that happen again.”

Alabama fell 94-85 to Auburn Saturday. The Crimson Tide will be back in action Wednesday, facing Missouri on the road.