Rece Davis believes Mark Sears is having the best season in Alabama history
The Alabama Crimson Tide men’s basketball team earned the program’s first-ever Final Four appearance after beating the Clemson Tigers in the Elite Eight. A large part of the Crimson Tide’s success this year is tied directly to the performance of guard Mark Sears. All of his effort and hard work have not gone unnoticed.
ESPN’s Rece Davis recently appeared on The Next Round Podcast. While discussing this year’s Final Four field, the college sports expert heaped some big-time praise on Sears.
“Of all of the great names that I mentioned, I think Mark Sears has had the greatest season by an Alabama basketball player ever. Maybe some old-timers are going to say Jerry Harper had a better year,” said Davis. “But this guy, to me, deserves to have this jersey put in the rafters and have the number retired. Nobody else wears it anymore. He’s the dude who got him over the hump, and it’s a remarkable thing.”
This is Sears’ second year at Alabama, and he has made a significant jump from year one to year two, nearly doubling his overall production with only a four-minute increase in average minutes per game. The senior guard is averaging 20.5 points, 4.1 assists, and 1.7 steals per contest. But it’s not about what he has done individually. It is more so about the fact that he has been the engine of this Alabama offense and the key to their success this year.
“There’s something about this sport because there’s so much emphasis placed on the tournament,” he said. “Careers are made and broken by whether you succeed or fail in this one-shot deal of a tournament. There is a certain validation that comes along with making it. And with the amount of success Alabama has had historically and, more specifically, the elevated success that they’ve had with Nate Oats, it’s a validating moment for them to make the Final Four.”
Alabama is just two wins away from hoisting its first-ever men’s college basketball national championship. The Crimson Tide is synonymous with national titles, but that is more so on the field, especially with the tremendous run that former head coach Nick Saban had on campus from 2007 to 2024.
Oats could start his own Saban-like run this year should Alabama upset the odds on favorite to win the title, UConn, and go on to defeat the winner out of North Carolina State and Purdue. But in order to do so, Sears must continue to be all that Davis believes he is. If he does that, the college sports expert will have hit the nail right on the head, and Sears could very well see his name and number hanging in the rafters at the Crimson Tides’ home arena.