Nate Oats Looking Forward to ‘Special’ Final Four Banner Ceremony

We are four days away from Alabama men’s basketball’s first Final Four banner being hoisted into the Coleman Coliseum rafters.

The festivities will begin with an introduction of the 2024-25 Alabama men’s basketball team and will include a dunk contest, a three-point competition and conclude with a scrimmage. The first 2,000 fans in attendance will receive a replica banner and Final Four poster.

On Monday, Crimson Tide head coach Nate Oats joined The Next Round to discuss the upcoming ceremony, as he and the entire team are looking forward to this major moment in program history.

“It’s gonna be special,” Oats said. “They’ve never had a Final Four team here before. We’ve had some very loyal fans and they’ve deserved a Final Four. The program has been knocking on the door various times throughout the course of Alabama basketball and we finally got one. It’ll be special to think about what we were able to accomplish, but it will also be nice to raise the banner and flip the script to start focusing on this year.”

Oats was asked to predict the winner of Friday night’s three-point contest, and he gave a couple of potential candidates before naming his victor.

“[Aden] Holloway has been shooting the lights out, [Latrell] Wrightsell and [Mark] Sears obviously from last year,” Oats said. “One of those three, but Sears has done it long enough and I’ll take him right now. Holloway and Wrightsell are right there with him and day-to-day those three aren’t missing too many shots.”

A strong argument can be made that this is the most anticipated season in the history of Tide Hoops. Oats and his staff, several returning players, multiple experienced transfers and highly touted incoming freshmen all give Alabama realistic expectations to get two more wins than last season’s NCAA Tournament to claim the school’s first-ever National Title.

Oats believes this is the best roster he’s had since he became Alabama’s head coach on March 27, 2019.

“When you talk 1-through-13, it’s the deepest one we’ve had,” Oats said. “We’ve got experience, youth, athleticism, depth at every position. We’re a little banged up right now, but even with some guys out, we’ve got so much depth, we’re still pretty good. When we come together, we’ve got a lot of pieces, so I think it’s our best roster we’ve had since we’ve been here.”

“There’s no Brandon Miller, but Mark Sears is a very good college player who could score buckets. We’re trying to get him to that next level, we got to his defense to be better. But scoring the basketball in the college game, he’s done as well as anybody we’ve had here.”