Alabama Basketball Walk-On Kai Spears Awarded Scholarship
Alabama basketball sophomore guard Kai Spears is a walk-on no more. Spears was offered a scholarship on Thursday sources tell BamaCentral.
Spears is in his second year with the program. He has appeared in seven games this season with six total points. The guard made his first career field goal in the 111-67 victory over Eastern Kentucky on Dec. 23.
Coming into the season, Alabama only had 12 scholarship players (Kris Parker, Mark Sears, Grant Nelson, Rylan Griffen, Davin Cosby Jr., Mouhamed Dioubate, Mohamed Wague, Latrell Wrightsell Jr., Jarin Stevenson, Nick Pringle, Sam Walters and Aaron Estrada) on the team, which left one scholarship spot available.
Senior forward Max Scharnowski and freshman Ward Harrell are the other two walk-ons currently on the Crimson Tide roster.
It is the second season in a row Alabama head coach Nate Oats left an open scholarship spot on the roster. Last season, Alabama used the open scholarship for Cosby who enrolled early, but the Crimson Tide didn't add an early-enrollee midseason this year.
In Friday's press conference, Oats explained the reasoning behind giving Spears a scholarship over Scharnowski, who has been in the program longer. Oats said Scharnowski is already on a good academic scholarship, so Spears needed it more and was given the scholarship after discussing it with the two players.
"Super happy for him," Oats said about Spears. "He's a great kid. He works really hard. He deserves it, as does Max. Kind of had both those guys that are multi-year walk-ons, so you look at those guys. Anytime we have a scholarship available, and we have a great walk-on that's doing what he's supposed to, we're going to reward him with it."
Oats specified that the scholarship is for this season. Spears went to Bishop Canevin high school in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and is the son of Marshall athletic director Christian Spears. He did not appear in any games in his freshman season, so he has three full years of eligibility remaining.
