Alabama basketball looking to earn 'biggest win' in program history

LOS ANGELES – Alabama is one win away from making program history. 

The Crimson Tide, a No. 4 seed in the NCAA Tournament, will take on No. 6-seed Clemson in the Elite Eight later tonight, with the winner advancing to the Final Four. No other Alabama team has been beyond this point in the postseason, but the 2023-24 team is looking to break through and be playing in the third weekend of March Madness for the first time ever.

Head coach Nate Oats has led Alabama (24-11) to four NCAA Tournaments and three Sweet 16 appearances. This year is his first Elite Eight and only the second in Tide basketball history. But Oats knows to take the next step as a program, Alabama needs at least one more win.

“We’ve been able to recruit some higher-level players,” Oats said. “Players want to play here. We’ve won two SEC regular seasons, two SEC Tournaments since we’ve been here. We’ve won a lot. But we’ve never been to a Final Four.

“Making a Final Four would be very big for the program, would show that we’re competing with all of the best programs in the country for the biggest thing. You’re trying to win a national championship. A Final Four is that step right before winning a national championship, and we haven’t been to a Final Four yet.

“So this would be the biggest win in the history of Alabama basketball if we can pull it off. I think our players understand the enormity of the game, and I think their preparation, their effort will match their understanding of how important this game is.”

Alabama has defeated Charleston (109-96), Grand Canyon (72-61) and North Carolina (89-87) to reach its second-ever Elite Eight, and Oats has preached “next” during the Tide’s tournament run, as in having a next-play mentality. That was crucial in Thursday’s win over the Tar Heels, which included multiple runs but UA coming out on top with a strong finish.

That idea actually came from former Alabama football coach Nick Saban, who Oats said sent it in a text. Saban is still a resource for Oats, who worked across the parking lot from him for the first four years of his tenure in Tuscaloosa, Ala., and was the first person he mentioned when he was asked if he had reached out to any of his mentors ahead of the Elite Eight. 

The Crimson Tide has looked like a different basketball team during March Madness after losing three of its final five regular-season games and going one-and-done in the SEC Tournament. It was a late-season skid that concerned Oats, who reached out to two retired coaches on how to rebound and make a Final Four, and their advice seems to have worked.

“I called Frank Martin because South Carolina had – if you go back and look when they made their Final Four run – they were on a down-stretch. They had lost a few. We weren’t playing our best basketball going into this tournament. Neither were they. How do you get your mindset to change? 

“I actually talked to Coach (Jim) Boeheim, who did it twice at Syracuse, wasn’t playing their best at the end of the regular season. ACC Tournament, got on a run, made the Final Four. I reached out to those guys, and they were great. They talked to me about the whole thing.”

As Oats said, Alabama is on the doorstep of earning its biggest win in program history, but an argument could be made that the current title belongs to its most recent victory. The Tide upset a No. 1 seed to reach its first Elite Eight in 20 years and did so with an impressive showing from Grant Nelson, who led UA with 24 points, 12 rebounds and five blocks. 

But in an effort to keep his team from focusing on the last win rather than the preparation for a challenging Clemson squad in front of it, Oats used an old Saban line in his message.

“This doesn’t happen very often,” Oats said. “We only have been to one other Elite Eight in the history of Alabama, that was 20 years ago. You don’t want to take this for granted.

“Coach Saban calls it ‘rat poison’ all the time. If you wanted, you can get on your phone and look at social media and type your name in and see hundreds of people talking about how great you were. But it has nothing to do with preparing to play the next game. 

“I told them, ‘If you want to get to a Final Four, you’ve got to be disciplined enough to put that rat poison out, get locked in on what we need to do for the next 24 hours, be prepared to beat this team. Because anything else is a total distraction. … If you’re not disciplined enough to stay off social media and not waste a bunch of time doing that, I don’t know how serious you are about winning.’”

Ahead of a huge day for the Alabama men’s basketball program, that message seems to have been received by the team as it tries to do what has never been done in 100-plus years.

“We would be a historic team in Alabama history. Being a part of that would be great,” said sophomore guard Rylan Griffen. “It’s not going to be easy, for sure. Like Clemson is a great team. So in order for us to get that, we’re going to have to work really, really hard and play really, really hard and a really, really good game tomorrow.

“Focus on the game first and then all that other stuff comes after.”

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