Alabama Basketball Makes Home-and-Home Series to Houston Official
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — On Wednesday morning, Alabama basketball announced its home-and-home series to Houston, making the scheduled contests of 2021 and 2022 official.
The 2021 contest will be played in Tuscaloosa, with next season's game set in Houston, Texas. Specific dates for the two-game series are yet to be announced.
The Crimson Tide and head coach Nate Oats have made it a point to schedule highly-ranked programs, and the Cougars of the American Athletic Conference are the next to ink an agreement with Alabama.
In addition to Houston, Alabama is scheduled to play Gonzaga in Seattle and Baylor as part of the SEC/Big 12 Challenge, making three of the four NCAA Final Four teams of 2021 on the Crimson Tide schedule this season.
“I think you guys have gotten to know me well enough that we’re gonna schedule really good teams,” Oats told the media in April. “Houston’s pretty good. I’m not trying to schedule too many top-10 teams to come in here. Houston will be in here."
That was before details were finalized, and now that it's official, Alabama will undoubtedly boast one of the toughest schedules in the country, including the program's 18-game SEC slate.
"There’s an art to this doing this scheduling thing, and I think we’ve done pretty good with it," Oats said.
Its home-and-home set to Houston comes less than one day after the Crimson Tide learned its leading scorer from 2020-21, guard Jaden Shackelford, will return for his junior season at Alabama.
