Alabama inks Aiden Sherrell, Naas Cunningham; Nate Oats discusses remaining spots

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – The Alabama men’s basketball team officially added two players from the high school ranks on Thursday, with center Aiden Sherrell and small forward Naas Cunningham sending in their national letters of intent. Basketball’s early signing period opened on Wednesday, Nov. 8, and will remain open for one week through Nov. 15.

Sherrell was Alabama’s first commitment of the 2024 cycle, pledging to the Crimson Tide on Sept. 26. The 6-foot-10, 225-pound post player hails from Detroit is currently rated the No. 24 overall recruit in the nation and the fourth-best center, per the On3 Industry Rankings. 

Cunningham committed to Alabama this week, announcing his decision on Tuesday after he visited Tuscaloosa. A 6-foot-7, 180-pound small forward Cunningham hails from West Orange, N.J., and is considered the country’s 44th-best prospect and No. 15 small forward.

Shortly after their signings were made official, head coach Nate Oats shared his thoughts.

“We’ve been recruiting Aiden Sherrel for a long time,” Oats said Thursday. “In my opinion, he’s the best big in the country for how we want to play. We targeted him early. It helped that he’s from Detroit originally and I knew a lot of his people up there. He’s 6-11, moves great, can play on the perimeter, shoots the ball well, a lob target. 

“We’ve had different bigs here. You go back to Alex Reese and Jordan Bruner, they could both space the floor really well and shoot it, but they weren’t really the lob targets that (Charles) Bediako was. Bediako and (Nick) Pringle have been great lob targets. I think Aiden’s the best combination of both of those. Like he can roll out of pick-and-roll and dunk the ball. He can pop and hit a three. He’s playing in a high school program right now that allows him to play on the perimeter, which is great for his development, and he’s showing that he can make threes like we like. Really fired up about him. I think he’s going to be a big addition to our program.

“Naas Cunningham is one of the most skilled big guards, wings in the country, and we’ve done really well with those types here lately. Going back to Herb Jones, (Josh) Primo, Keon Ellis, kind of that 6-6 – Keon started for the Kings last night – leading into Brandon Miller. We’ve done well with these big guards and wings. He’s coming in, he’s skilled, athletic. He’s got to put some weight on, but we’ve taken some guys like that in the past and been able to put some weight on them. I think he’s got big upside.

“We’re super excited about both these guys. We’ll continue to add quality players that we think have a chance to be pros in our program.”

The Tide currently has the nation’s No. 7 recruiting class and is still in the mix for some of the top players in the country. How many spots does Alabama plan to fill with high school players? And what positions is it still targeting? Oats broke down the Tide’s remaining plan.

“It’s going to depend on good of a high school player you can get,” Oats said. “Kind of our motto at this point has been if they’re good enough to help you right away or if they’ve got real upside and understand that it might not be immediate, like, playing. The day of bringing a kid in, bringing him along, developing him long-term – shoot, if they don’t play right away, it seems like they want to transfer right away. So if they’re good enough to help us immediately or they understand that it’s going to be a long-term deal and they’re coming in to get better and play in our system, we’ll take them. Otherwise, we’ll go get kids out of the portal.

“And look, every kid that we’ve had drafted here, all six of them, they’re not transfer. Three of our starters, three of our better players this year are transfers. So we’ve done it both ways. (Mark) Sears, (Aaron) Estrada, Grant Nelson, (Latrell) Wrightsell, Mo Wague is going to play a lot. The guys that have come in, they’re going to play. Now, you look at everybody that’s been drafted, they’ve all not been transfers. I think we can do it both ways.

Oats continued, “To answer your question, how many are we looking to fill still in this class, probably 2-3 more. But if we don’t get them here in the fall or they don’t commit, we’ve got some guys we’re recruiting that are talking about maybe committing after the signing period. At this point, what the signing period allows us to do is talk about them and takes the visit limit off them and we can go visit them as often, which is good because you can build a better relationship with them before they get here. You’ve got essentially unlimited visits.

“I think about the relationship that we had with a guy like Brandon before he came. He was down here a bunch. We saw him a bunch. It’d be great to have that type of relationship with a guy before he gets here. Signing early allows you to do that. If they don’t sign early and they still commit to us, I’d still be very excited to coach them. We don’t want to rush people into making decisions before they’re comfortable making them either. 

“If we could sign 2-3 more, if we don’t we’ll go get some kids in the portal. We’ve done really well in the portal because those guys in the portal want to play in a system like we’re playing.”

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