The Alabama Crimson Tide is moving on to Sunday

With all the ups and downs of this college basketball season, there isn't a sweeter sentence than the Tide is moving on to Sunday. Before Friday night the month of March hadn't been friendly to Alabama so there was a lot of uncertainty of how they would fair against Charleston. Nate Oats was very critical of the effort of his team after an embarrassing showing in the SEC Tournament and the team really took his words to heart. The Tide got off to a quick start and never looked back getting easy transition buckets, hitting threes at a high pace, and giving a defensive effort that hadn't been seen in weeks.

This was easily the best performance away from Coleman Coliseum that Alabama has had all season, and the NCAA Tournament was the perfect place to have it. Mark Sears had a huge night dropping 30 points and it was clear he didn't want his season to end Friday night. Latrell Wrightsell matched his energy hitting five threes and when he scores in double digits the Tide are hard to beat. Aaron Estrada had a stat-stuffing performance that you expect to see from a senior who doesn't want to see his season come to an end. It's a beautiful sight when Nate Oats gets to clear the bench and the rarely-used players get to experience playing time in the NCAA tournament.

Now that the Tide has cleared their first obstacle of the NCAA tournament the next challenge is for this team to keep this same energy and momentum on Sunday. When this team plays like they did on Friday night there is no question they have what it takes to move onto the second weekend of the tournament. The players seemed very confident from the start of the game and seemed to be having fun for the first time in weeks. It doesn't hurt that Alabama was able to get a dominant win in the same arena where Auburn was sent home earlier in the evening.