Alabama basketball has become a second-weekend mainstay under Nate Oats. For the third consecutive season and the fourth in the past five years, Oats has led the Crimson Tide into the Sweet 16. Prior to Oats, Alabama had made the Sweet 16 just eight times in program history, with two of those appearances coming before the tournament expanded to 64 teams.
Needless to say, we are living in the golden days of Alabama basketball. Oats has already crafted a legitimate case as the best coach in the program's men's basketball history, with due respect to Wimp Sanderson.
The argument became really strong last season when Oats led the Crimson Tide to the first Final Four in program history. To get there, Oats first had to lead them through the Sweet 16, a round of the NCAA Tournament that had been a house of horrors for the Tide previously.
Coming into this year's Big Dance, in 11 previous trips to the Sweet 16, Alabama has compiled just a 2-9 record in regional semifinal matchups.
Alabama's first Sweet 16 appearance came back in 1976 under the guidance of CM Newton when the tournament only featured 32 teams. Alabama needed just one win (a 79-64 win over North Carolina) to advance. They ran into Bobby Knight's eventual National Champion Indiana Hoosiers in the regional semifinal, coming up just short in a five-point loss that older Alabama fans are still stewing over.
Six years later, Wimp Sanderson got Alabama back into the Sweet 16, again needing only one win to get there with the tournament field featuring 48 teams and the Crimson Tide having a first-round bye.
Alabama beat St. John's in the 2nd Round before falling to Michael Jordan and eventual National Champion North Carolina in the Sweet 16.
Sanderson would take the Crimson Tide back to the Sweet 16 five more times - including three consecutive appearances from 1985-1987 - during his tenure in Tuscaloosa. Alabama would lose every time.
Sanderson's last Sweet 16 team came in 1991. The 4-seeded Tide got blown out by 1-seed Arkansas. It would be 13 years before Alabama made it back.
A breakthrough, more heartbreak, and a Final Four for Alabama Basketball
Alabama's breakthrough in the Sweet 16 finally happened, unexpectedly, in 2004 led by former player Mark Gottfried. Gottfried had played on arguably the Tide's best ever team in 1987, one that seemed destined to make a deep NCAA Tournament run before running into a buzzsaw Providence team coached by a young Rick Pitino.
Alabama entered the tournament as an 8-seed and needed a game-winner from Antoine Pettway against Southern Illinois to get out of the 1st Round. The Tide then upset 1-seed Stanford and knocked off defending National Champion Syracuse for the program's first ever Sweet 16 victory.
The magical run ended in the Regional Final when Alabama ran into UConn, the eventual National Champions.
That was the last taste of NCAA Tournament success for Alabama for the next 17 years. Alabama would make the Big Dance only four times over the next nearly two decades until Oats arrived in Tuscaloosa from Buffalo, brash and oozing with confidence.
In 2021 and 2023, Oats had teams good enough to break through. Both of those teams won the SEC regular season and tournament titles. In 2021, the Tide was a 2-seed in the NCAA Tournament, beating Iona and Maryland to get to the Sweet 16 before losing a heartbreaker to UCLA in overtime.
In 2023, led by super freshman Brandon Miller, Alabama was the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament, the first 1-seed in program history. The Tide eased past Texas A&M CC and Maryland to get to the Sweet 16 before an abhorrent shooting night against San Diego State sent the Crimson Tide home unexpectedly.
That loss made it seem even more obvious that the 2004 run to the Elite Eight was an aberration and the Sweet 16 glass ceiling was nearly impossible to break through. Until last season, when Mark Sears and company shot through that ceiling and into the Final Four.
With lowered expectations following a difficult end to the regular season and an immediate bouncing in the SEC Tournament, Alabama got hot in the Big Dance. They beat Charleston and Grand Canyon to get to the Sweet 16 matchup with 1-seed North Carolina. Led by a heroic effort from Grant Nelson, Alabama stunned the Tar Heels to get to the Elite Eight for just the second time in program history.
There, Sears and Jarin Stevenson went off to lead the Crimson Tide past Clemson and into the Final Four. Alabama didn't have quite enough against eventual National Champion UConn, but just getting to Phoenix was a giant leap for the program.
This season brought expectations that have never been higher for basketball in Tuscaloosa. Oats and company are out to prove that last season's run wasn't a fluke, and it won't be another 17 years before they win another Sweet 16 game.