How Alabama basketball is handling lofty preseason expectations

MOUNTAIN BROOK, Ala. — Alabama basketball is in the midst of the build up to its most anticipated season in program history.

Coming off its first Final Four in the school’s history, Alabama is ranked No. 2 in the preseason AP Poll. That’s its highest preseason ranking in program history, surpassing when it was ranked No. 7 prior to the 1990-91 season.

Alabama was picked by the media to win the SEC for just the third time in program history. In addition, returning star Mark Sears was named the preseason SEC player of the year, and is already receiving love as a potential national player of the year candidate.

The hype is for good reason, too. In addition to Sears, Alabama returns Grant Nelson, a preseason second team All-SEC selection, as well as key contributors on last year’s Final Four team in Latrell Wrightsell Jr., Jarin Stevenson and Mo Dioubate.

The Crimson Tide made some major additions in the transfer portal, namely Rutgers center Cliff Omoruyi and Auburn guard Aden Holloway, and brought in the No. 2 recruiting class in the nation, headlined by two 5-star prospects.

This team is extremely talented, and Nate Oats knows it. He’s already made numerous claims about this being his deepest and best team he’s had since he’s been in Tuscaloosa, and he’s had teams win SEC championships, a Final Four team, and a team that’s been the No. 1 overall NCAA Tournament seed.

When Oats first took the podium to address the media Tuesday at SEC Tipoff ’25, the first thing he noted was that Alabama wasn’t picked fifth in the conference this season. The Crimson Tide had been picked fifth three different times in his tenure, before the 2021, 2023 and 2024 seasons, all of which were very successful.

The one season Alabama was picked higher than fifth was 2022, when the Crimson Tide flamed out in the first round of the NCAA Tournament as a 6-seed.

“I think last year we were picked fifth. We’ve been picked fifth three times now. We won the SEC regular season tournament two of those and made a Final Four in the other one. I was hoping maybe we’d get picked fifth again because it’s worked out well for us,” Oats said. “Our roster is not such that anybody is picking us fifth, so people have asked me whether we would rather come in under the radar and surprise people. … I’d say I’d much rather have the roster I currently have and deal with where we’re picked, and we’ll have to create some other type of motivational factors because we won’t have a chip on our shoulder from getting picked fifth or whatever.”

Alabama players have said Oats embraces the fact that this team has lofty expectations. He’s never been afraid to admit it while speaking publicly, and has almost added his own fuel to the fire by talking about how good the roster is time and time again.

“He does embrace that with us,” Sears said. “It’s a testament to the hard work, and the recruiting class we brought in, and the newcomers and the old players we have.”

The players said they aren’t shielded from the outside noise. They’ve heard what people have said about this team and how good it can be, including their own coach.

“We have a lot of guys that are really good,” Wrightsell said. “We hear the talk, we don’t really feed much into it. We understand we have a goal for ourselves, and that’s to win a national championship. Each day we try to run off of that.”

And that’s the key. Wrightsell said Alabama doesn’t need to focus on the noise and the expectations that come from outside the program. The team has expectations for themselves, and they’re extremely clear.

“We’re trying to win four championships. The Players Era, the SEC regular season, the SEC Tournament, and the national championship. Those are the expectations.”