Deja Vu in Music City: How Alabama Basketball Leans on 2024’s SEC Tournament Loss To Inspire a March Madness Run
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — It was a familiar tune in the Music City as Alabama basketball was bounced out of the SEC Tournament by the Florida Gators on semifinal Saturday. The Crimson Tide allowed Florida to set a new SEC Tournament record by scoring 104 points as the ephemeral Alabama defense disappeared in the second half.
The Crimson Tide is no stranger to the scenario. Florida has scored 99 or more points in each of its last four games against Alabama. In fact, the Gators scored 102 and eliminated Alabama from the 2024 SEC Tournament in similar fashion.
While the song started off sadly in 2024 the melody ended sweetly with a trip to Phoenix and the program’s first Final Four appearance. The 2025 Crimson Tide team hopes repeat last year’s track with a slight remix ending in a national championship celebration.
“Yeah, we need to click again,” Alabama forward Jarin Stevenson said. “Last year, I felt like going into the tournament our defense got a lot better. That’s what really carried us to have a deep run. So again, we’re going to reevaluate with this group. The players are going to get together and reevaluate what we need to do better offensively and defensively and then go from there.”
Head coach Nate Oats espoused confidence in his team’s ability to bounce back and put the loss behind them, but emphasized the need to dig in and fully embrace the blue-collar mentality.
“I think we’re close to being an elite team that can make another Final Four run,” Oats said, “I don’t know how many times we can play somebody, and basically, the loss is because we didn’t play hard enough. That’s frustrating. I think the lesson learned last year is we’re not going to get anywhere being 110th, 112th ranked defense in the country. We’re going to have to determine we’re actually going to guard somebody.
“We did for four straight games in the NCAA tournament. We played really good defense. We got everybody to buy into playing hard on the defensive end. Our defense was good enough to make a four-game run. We put together some pretty good scouting reports I thought that fit. We knocked off some pretty good teams.
“But we’re going to face a little adversity in the NCAA tournament, go back to last year second round, playing Grand Canyon. They’re good. They’re tough. Things weren’t going well. Dioubate came in, changed the entire trajectory of the game. Dang near won the game for us. We’re going to have to have multiple guys that are capable of changing the trajectory of the game to making us the toughest, hardest playing group on the floor. I thought Mo was pretty good tonight. We chart the blue collar stuff, we were minus 15 in that department in the second half. We had 79, and Mo had 25 of the 79. Nobody else even had double-digits. We’re going to have to get some other tough guys, hard-playing guys other than just Mo going into the NCAA tournament.”
Alabama star guard Mark Sears scored 22 points across both games in the SEC tournament with nine coming against the Gators. He was 1 of 12 from beyond the 3-point line and was 0-for-4 against the Florida, exactly like his 2024 performance against the Gators in Bridgestone.
Sears responded in the NCAA Tournament in 2024 making 20 of 43 from beyond the arc and scoring 121 across five games while taking the Crimson Tide to the Final Four. Sears revealed his message to the players who weren’t involved in the 2024 NCAA Tournament run.
“Yeah, we’ve just got to regroup and we can’t really dwell on this and let it really beat us up heading into the tournament. We’ve just got to use this as motivation and fire for us to head into the tournament.”
“We’ve got to put this one behind us. Every possession and every play matters because this is what everybody dreams of. I know they’re going to be really excited but just take the approach that every game is really no different from other games
Friday night’s loss may have appeared as a record-scratching moment for the Crimson Tide, but deja vu kicks in reminding the Alabama nation that this song still has a few more notes to add.
