At Alabama, championships are as traditional as Denny Chimes and ‘Yea Alabama,’ and one team recently joined in on the winning tradition with its first championship.
The men’s wheelchair basketball team defeated Texas-Arlington 71-52 Saturday, March 9, claiming its first national championship in the program’s seven-year history.
Head coach Miles Thompson said winning was a relief after all that was put into the program.
“It’s a justification of all the hard work,” Thompson said. “It quantifies things. But mostly it’s a deep smile for these boys and this team and knowing that they bought into all the extra work and the extra layers that we added to the brand, to the product.”
Senior Mark Booth scored 18 points and shot 50 percent (4-of-8) from the 3-point line in the championship game. He said it took some time for the reality of winning a championship to sink in.
“It felt great,” Booth said. “I didn’t even know what to feel for a little while because this is my fifth year, and we were not very good my first couple of years. We’ve slowly been getting better. I was sitting there getting my shirt, hat and medal, and I just couldn’t believe it that we won. It was great.”
Booth and fellow senior Jared Arambula were captains on the 2012-2013 team, and both have watched this team evolve into the proud machine it is today.
Arambula averaged more than 22.25 points and 7.87 rebounds per game this season. In the championship match, he posted 21 points, nine rebounds and 12 assists. He said this team’s success and progression of the product on the court will be a tool to draw recruits to the Capstone.
“It’s invaluable,” Arambula said. “Not only did we win, but we built it from nothing. It’s not like a team that’s been here around for 30 years. We built this in seven years.”
Thompson said Booth and Arambula catapulted the program when they arrived on campus. It was their hard work and determination that allowed the Crimson Tide to compete with the other elite teams.
“Jared and Mark, five years ago, changed the program,” Thompson said. “They’re both fifth-year seniors, both vastly different young men. But they can both play. Their role in changing the culture here was winning games.”
The face-lift to the culture of wheelchair basketball at Alabama has made it appealing to top recruits around the country and around the world. Thompson said the team’s success has allowed it to compete in the international recruiting battle.
But one problem he has faced with recruiting is the lack of a facility to show off to potential players.
“We need our own place. We need our own home,” Thompson said.
The men’s team practices at the University Recreation Center every day at 5:45 a.m. That is the only time the players have the basketball courts to themselves.
But Booth said he doesn’t see a building being planned for wheelchair basketball in the University’s future.
“I think it obviously would be nice, but it seems like something that’s not going to happen,” Booth said. “We’ve been here, we just won a championship, the girls have won three championships and we’re still both relegated to the Rec, practicing at o’ dark thirty.”
The players are fine with a small arena, just as long as it has a court and two goals.
“It would be nice to be able to go into a gym and shoot whenever you want,” Arambula said.
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