Mark Sears announces return to Alabama for 2024-25 season

After declaring for the NBA Draft and maintaining his college eligibility, Alabama point guard Mark Sears will return to Tuscaloosa next season and use his final season of eligibility with the Crimson Tide.

Sears spent the first two seasons of his college career at Ohio, named to the MAC All-Freshman First Team, earned First Team All-MAC honors, and was a five-time MAC Player of The Week before deciding to transfer and take his talents back to his home state of Alabama.

In the past two seasons he’s been the point guard for the Crimson Tide with 74 total game appearances in an Alabama uniform (all starts). Taking home All-SEC Second-Team honors in year one with Alabama after averaging 12.5 points, 3.5 rebounds, 2.6 assists, and 1.2 steals per game in a year where the Crimson Tide took home the SEC regular season and tournament titles.

For the 2022-23 season, the Crimson Tide made it to the Sweet Sixteen of the NCAA Tournament. But would make their first Final Four appearance in program history this past season thanks to a Sears taking a leap and emerging as one of the premier point guards in the entire nation. Highlighted by elite play in the postseason.

Sears earned All-SEC First-Team recognition after averaging a career-high 21.5 points per game last season which ranked second in the conference. Also adding 4.2 rebounds, 4.0 assists, and 1.6 steals per game to his impressive year where he also shot an efficient 50.8% from the field and 43.6% from behind the three-point line.

His elite play only increased in the postseason averaging 24.2 points and 5.2 rebounds per game in the NCAA Tournament. Helping lead Alabama to a historic postseason run after being an underrated recruit who was unranked and unrated on On3’s Industry Rankings out of Hargrave Military Academy in Muscle Shoals, Alabama.

“He didn’t have any high-major scholarships coming out of high school,” Alabama head coach Nate Oats said. “We probably screwed up and didn’t offer him out of high school, probably not a probably, we did screw up. He goes to Ohio, he’s pretty good, I was in the league. I called a lot of coaches in that league, they said yeah he’s good enough for you. Nobody told me he’s gonna be this good, I didn’t think he was gonna be this good when we got him.”

There’s no question that Oats and the entire Crimson Tide family are happy to have Sears return, as he’ll look to lead Alabama to new heights once again in the final season of his college career.