Alabama briefly celebrates Sweet 16 win before turning full attention to Elite Eight

LOS ANGELES – Alabama advanced to its second-ever Elite Eight after an upset win over 1-seed North Carolina on Thursday. But Nate Oats said the celebration would be brief.

Crimson Tide fans are aware of the 24-hour rule after a win. But Oats took it to a new level.

“We’ve got a short-lived celebration,” Oats said. “I told them they can celebrate for about 30 minutes. As soon as the media is out of the locker room, we’ve got to get moving on to Clemson.”

Alabama defeated the Tar Heels, 89-87, at Crypto.com Arena to become the first team since the Tide’s 2003-04 squad to reach this point in the NCAA Tournament. UA welcomed that team back to Coleman Coliseum earlier this year and has worn throwback uniforms to honor it on multiple occasions, including its two wins in the first weekend of March Madness.

The Crimson Tide topped Southern Illinois, Stanford and Syracuse in the NCAA Tournament 20 years ago before falling to UConn, the eventual national champion, in the Elite Eight. That was as far as Alabama has made it in college basketball’s postseason, but Oats and company are trying to make program history when they face 6-seed Clemson on Saturday,

“We’re one game away,” Oats said. “And it’s not easy. I told these guys at halftime it’s not easy to win these games to get to an Elite Eight. There’s only been one at Alabama. They’ve had all kinds of pros and all kinds of really good teams. Wimp Sanderson was one of the better coaches in his era in the country. They were never able to make it.

“(Mark) Gottfried made it to the Elite Eight when (Antoine) Pettway was on the team. And we heard about it forever because Pettway has got the only Elite Eight, and now we have two. We’re going to try to get the only Final Four.”

Oats is now 7-3 in NCAA Tournament games as the head coach at Alabama, where his teams have appeared in three Sweet 16s (2021, 2023, 2024) and now one Elite Eight (2024). While it is an accomplishment to enjoy, that will be something the Tide does after the season.

Now, Alabama’s attention is on its next opponent and punching its ticket to Phoenix.

“It’s very historical,” said Crimson Tide senior guard Mark Sears. “But like Coach said, we can celebrate this for like 30 minutes and now we’re on to the next opponent.”

Added Alabama’s star of the game, senior forward Grant Nelson, “We’ve been working for this all season. But this wasn’t our end goal. It’s good we got here. It’s something at the school, we haven’t done, or one other time. It’s great. We’re going to celebrate it a little bit and then move on to the next game.”

How has Oats been able to instill that attitude in his players? Through a next-play mentality.

“We haven’t really done anything yet,” Oats said. “We beat two seeds that we were supposed to beat. We beat Charleston. No disrespect to Charleston … but Charleston has one NCAA Tournament win in their program. We beat Grand Canyon. They didn’t have a tournament win until this year. Those programs had two combined NCAA Tournament wins.

“We haven’t done anything yet. It’s great to be in the Sweet 16, let’s not take it for granted. There’s only two SEC teams left in it. But we haven’t done a thing yet. So let’s not act like we’ve done anything yet. Now, if we can beat Carolina, now we have done something. Now we’re one win away from a Final Four, the first one in school history.”

Standing in the way of Alabama and its first-ever trip to the Final Four is a familiar foe. The Tide faced Clemson earlier this season in Tuscaloosa and the Tigers walked out of Coleman with an 85-77 win. Clemson has defeated New Mexico, Baylor and Arizona to reach the Elite Eight, and two of those wins were against teams that were higher seeds than the Tigers.

There is a familiarity with what’s next, but to keep its season alive, Alabama has to lock in.

“Some of their guys killed us, so we’ve got to get a better game plan,” Oats said. “I thought the coaching staff, the assistants, our analytics crew did an unbelievable job getting us ready for this game. I thought we had a spot-on game plan. We’ve got to do the same thing for Clemson. We won’t be getting a lot of sleep tonight.”

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