For the second season in a row, Alabama women’s basketball is 21-7 midway through February and sits in a favorable spot for the NCAA Tournament.
The sustained success comes despite the team losing its top performers from last year as guards Sarah Ashlee Barker, Aaliyah Nye and Zaay Green were selected in the 2025 WNBA draft.
This year’s team, with three Top 25 wins and two against opponents in the Top 15, has done just that. Behind this feat of not skipping a beat is a pillar of the Crimson Tide’s program-wide outlook, a pillar ensuring that regardless of the name on the back of the jersey, the team is internally set up to succeed.
“I’ve said this all along, and it’s not a cliche — culture doesn’t graduate,” head coach Kristy Curry said following the team’s win over then-No. 6 Kentucky on Jan. 8. This isn’t the first time she has voiced the philosophy, and it has been a key talking point since before the season officially started. The mindset of cultural consistency is, as articulated by player and coach alike, one of the biggest reasons that last season’s success has carried over even with roster turnover.
“[Curry] has been saying a lot here lately, ‘culture never graduates’ — just continuing to build off the culture that has been created here and trying to win at a high level, whether that’s on the floor or off the floor,” senior Karly Weathers said Oct. 24, days after a preseason scrimmage win against Florida State.
That culture itself has a few key attributes, as outlined by both players and Curry herself. One of them, which Curry highlighted the same day, is the importance of leadership.
“It’s a core group of leaders that have been here before,” she said, referencing players who were already in the program and have now stepped into a leadership role. At the SEC Tipoff media day a couple weeks earlier, she likewise doted on the leaders, specifically Weathers, guard Jess Timmons and forward Essence Cody: “I think all three, in their own way, just continue the tradition of great leaders and great people and great work and great energy.”
After Florida State, Timmons, who averaged 11.2 points for Alabama in 2023-24 but was medically redshirted last season, gave Weathers praise as the consummate example of program-ideal leadership. She called Weathers “the definition of what you’re supposed to be on and off the court.”
A natural byproduct of that leadership is team connectivity and chemistry, and those bonds lead to appreciation of the present.
“It’s just about embracing each other,” Weathers said. “We obviously had a lot of fun last year, but something we can build off of is truly being where our feet are and embracing each moment.”
That sentiment is present from top to bottom in the program. Following the Florida State game, Curry said, “Everything you can do away from the court impacts 94 feet. We spend a lot of time building relationships. We’re not gonna be transactional — we’re gonna be relational here at Alabama.”
Those foundations, which only provide a glimpse into the culture’s intricacies both on and off the court, have made this season a seamless continuation from the last. It’s a notable carryover, too, as it wasn’t clear how this roster would perform after losing three pro-level players. Even after starting 14-0 for the first time in team history, the Crimson Tide was unranked, likely due to an unremarkable nonconference schedule.
Since then, Alabama has proven it has the ability to compete in the SEC. That win over Kentucky was the official coming-out party, and the Crimson Tide finally broke into the Top 25 afterward. On Feb. 7, the team earned another high-caliber victory, defeating then-No. 13 Ole Miss at home.
This group is focused on the immediate next step and the overall competitive vision. As Curry said after the Kentucky game, “We can’t get caught up in what we did tonight. We can get caught up, though, in who we can become, and that’s our focus.”
The results have proven that those words aren’t just coach-speak and that all the notes about culture aren’t just fluff. With three new leading scorers in Timmons, Weathers and Cody; multiple transfers, including starting guard Ta’Mia Scott; and several freshmen headlined by former No. 1 Alabama high school player Ace Austin, this team is replicating its success.
