Alabama basketball rewards walk-on Kai Spears with scholarship
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – Alabama head coach Nate Oats revealed that walk-on guard Kai Spears was rewarded a scholarship for the rest of the Crimson Tide’s 2023-24 basketball season.
Spears, a sophomore, has spent the last two years at Alabama and appeared in seven games.
“Super happy for him,” Oats said on Friday. “He’s a great kid. He works really hard. He deserves it – as does Max (Scharnowski). We kind of had both those guys that are our multi-year walk-ons, you look at those guys, and anytime we have a scholarship available and we’ve got a great walk-on that’s doing what he’s supposed to do, we’re going to reward him with it.”
Spears is one of three walk-ons on this years Crimson Tide men’s basketball team, along with Max Scharnowski and Ward Harrell. Spears, a Pittsburgh native, has played in seven contests this season, including a pair of SEC matchups (South Carolina and LSU), and scored six total points. He is 1-for-3 on field-goal attempts but 4-for-4 from the free-throw line.
The decision to fill the 13th and final scholarship came down to Spears and Scharnowski, Oats said, and both of the Alabama walk-ons celebrated when they learned who it would be.
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“It was one of those deals where you have 13 scholarships, and you’ve got an open one,” Oats said. “We wanted to make sure nobody filled it at the break, kind of like Davin (Cosby) did last year. We looked at Max. Max has been here longer, and we would have gave it to Max, but Max is on a really good academic scholarship. So Kai needed it a little bit more than Max.
“We kind of sat the two of them down and discussed it and let Kai know that we were going to give it to him. … We had the two of them up in my office yesterday. They both gave each other big hugs and were crying. They were both really happy. It was a cool moment. But yeah, we did put him on scholarship for this year.”
Alabama now has 13 players on scholarship. The only player that will exhaust his eligibility this season is Aaron Estrada. Everyone else can return to the Tide for the 2024-25 season.
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