Nate Oats discusses possibility of redshirting 'a player or two' during 2024-25 season

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — The Alabama basketball roster is loaded. The Crimson Tide, who comes into the season ranked No. 2 in the country by the AP Poll, has one of the deepest rosters in the country, with an entire roster of players able to reasonably make solid contributions.

The only downside to having a roster so deep, is not having enough minutes to go around. Most rotations in college basketball include nine players, maybe 10 if a team is really deep, and on super rare cases, possibly 11. But Alabama has a full roster of 13 that all have capabilities.

Because of the depth of the roster, Alabama head coach Nate Oats said there have been conversations about redshirting ‘a player or two,’ as the season approaches in a few days, saying it’s ‘impossible’ to play all 13 players on the roster. Oats made sure, however, to clarify that the decision has to be mutual between the staff and the player.

“The redshirt thing is not just something we decide. That’s got to be a – these guys could decide, ‘No, I want to fight for my minutes, even if I’m not going to play that many minutes.’ It’s got to be a two-way deal, maybe we think it would be smart,” Oats said.

Specifically, Oats was asked about the possibility of redshirting freshman guard Naas Cunningham.

“We haven’t made the decisions yet, but it would make sense for a guy like [Naas Cunnigham], because he’s going to have to get a lot stronger, tougher,” Oats said. “His upside is really high. If he can get tougher physically, put on 15 pounds, I mean, 6-8 guards that shoot it at the level he shoots it at ten to be pros. He’s got to get his intensity level on a consistent basis throughout practice. We’ve got to keep working on him. There are days he looks like he should be in the NBA. He’s just got to get a little more consistent. He’s probably a candidate we’re going to talk to about it.”

Cunningham seems like a likely redshirt candidate just based on his playing time in Alabama’s two exhibition games. He played just 10 minutes against Wake Forest on Oct. 18, then dropped to six minutes against Memphis on Monday. In both of those games, Alabama was missing four scholarship players, all of whom are more than likely to play more than Cunningham once healthy.

Still, Cunningham is a player who was highly recruited, once being ranked the No. 1 player in his recruiting class before falling to No. 48 nationally, which is still a high 4-star recruit. He’s got real potential, which could be better realized after an extra year of development.

“Some of these guys, if you don’t have the pressure of playing in a game, you can get in the weight room on a gameday, the day before practice you don’t have to make sure your legs are up under you and are super fresh for the game, you can get a lot of extra work in,” Oats said. “There’s a lot of stuff you can do if you don’t have the pressure of making sure you’re mentally, physically rested and explosive for the game.”

Alabama had a freshman redshirt last season in Kris Parker, who transferred after the season and is now at Villanova. Oats discussed Parker’s redshirt, likening it to the potential situation with Cunningham.

“Here’s the other thing, if we don’t have a plan for you here, it doesn’t make much sense to redshirt you either,” Oats said. “Kris Parker last year, he ended up leaving, but if I didn’t really care about Kris then I would have taken him off his redshirt when we had all the injuries in February, he definitely could have helped us. He significantly improved over the course of the year. … I would have loved to keep him around here. I think Kris is a really good player and I think we did what was right by him in not taking him off his redshirt.”

“I think you’re doing what’s right by the individual sometimes by redshirting him as well.”

If Oats does elect to redshirt Cunningham, or anyone else on the roster, Alabama would have 12 available players for the 2024-25 season.