Not long ago, men’s and women’s basketball were viewed as struggling programs at Alabama.
But now, with the men’s program prepping for another potential Final Four run and the women’s recording its most wins in a regular season this century, the two programs have been rejuvenated. Men’s head coach Nate Oats and women’s head coach Kristy Curry played a large part in improving basketball at the University.
Men’s basketball
With the recent success the Crimson Tide has had, it’s easy to forget that even making the NCAA Tournament was a rarity before Oats was hired in March 2019, as Alabama had only made the tournament once in the past seven seasons.
Oats had just finished a season at Buffalo during which he posted a school-record 32 wins, and was content with his situation. But he knew he couldn’t turn down the chance to coach Alabama.
“My family and I loved it in Buffalo. We said if we were gonna leave there, it was gonna be for something special,” Oats said. “The University of Alabama is really special.”
Oats has a unique coaching style, a brand he has maintained throughout his career. His style focuses on two key things: “blue-collar basketball” and fast-paced play.
Oats describes blue-collar basketball as hard work, including diving for loose balls and taking charges. His staff tallies blue-collar points and awards a hard-hat winner to the player with the most blue-collar points after each win.
He also emphasizes fast-paced basketball, wanting his teams to get up and down the court as soon as possible and find an open shot, focused on a layup, three-pointer, or getting to the free-throw line. Alabama has ranked first in the country in points per game the past two seasons and in the top 20 in five of Oats’s six seasons in Tuscaloosa.
“We’re gonna get up and down the floor, and we’re gonna play blue-collar basketball,” Oats said. “That’s what we try to emphasize, and we make sure to establish it.”
The success has followed along with Oats. In just his second season in Tuscaloosa in 2021, the Crimson Tide won the SEC regular-season championship for the first time since 2002 and the conference tournament for the first time since 1991. The team advanced to the Sweet Sixteen but lost to UCLA.
Alabama reached new heights in 2023. The Crimson Tide once again won the SEC regular season and tournament and was the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament for the first time in school history. The team also made it back to the Sweet Sixteen before losing to San Diego State.
2024 marked another historic season for Oats’s Alabama squad, as the team made the Final Four for the first time in school history. It wasn’t until the team faced the eventual national champions in UConn that the run was cut short.
In the middle of another tournament run in 2025, Oats has brought the program to previously unseen levels of consistent success and transformed Alabama men’s basketball from a middling program into one of the best in the country.
“We’ve established ourselves as a top 10 program in the country over these last four or five years,” Oats said.
Women’s basketball
The outlook on the women’s basketball program was dark before Curry was hired in April 2013. The Crimson Tide had finished dead last in the SEC in the previous two seasons and hadn’t made the NCAA Tournament since 1999.
But now, the team is in the top 25 nationwide and have made the NCAA Tournament in three of the past four seasons.
Curry’s coaching philosophy at Alabama focuses on three core values: grit, love and gratitude.
“We want to be the grittiest team in the SEC. We want to love the front of our jersey more than the back and love each other,” Curry said. “We are grateful to be at The University of Alabama.”
In Curry’s first year at Alabama, she led the Crimson Tide to seven conference wins for the first time in 12 seasons.
Three seasons later, in 2017, Curry’s team reached 22 wins — the first time reaching 20 plus wins this century — and reached 20 wins again the following season.
In the 2021 season, Alabama reached the NCAA Tournament for the first time since the 1999 season and made some noise, winning in the first round against North Carolina before losing to Maryland.
The Crimson Tide made the NCAA Tournament in 2023 and 2024. In the latter year, it beat Florida State in the first round before losing to Texas.
“It’s been a joy just to see the progress. Early in my time here, it was just the progress we made every day with the little victories,” Curry said. “It’s been really fun to watch where we were and where we’re at now.”
Despite its success in recent years, the women’s basketball team hadn’t received much national attention.
That changed this season, as the Crimson Tide was ranked in the AP Top 25 poll for the first time in 25 seasons. The group has been ranked every week but one.
This season, the team earned a No. 5 seed in the NCAA Tournament. Despite falling to No. 4 seed Maryland in the Round of 32, the seeding was highest in Curry’s tenure, as well as the first time this century the Crimson Tide has won a NCAA Tournament game in back-to-back seasons, her growth of Alabama women’s basketball is on full display.
