Alabama Center Fully Cleared for 2026-27 After Missing Most of Last Season

Collins Onyejiaka only played in two games before missing the remainder of his freshman campaign due to a heart condition.

Alabama center Collins Onyejiaka sinks a free throw in the second half of the game against North Dakota on November 3, 2025. | Sarah Munzenmaier/Alabama Crimson Tide on SI

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Alabama basketball center Collins Onyejiaka is fully cleared for the 2026-27 season, head coach Nate Oats has confirmed.

This news comes after the Crimson Tide's 111-93 home win over Furman in a preseason exhibition. The sophomore did not play in the scrimmage but was in uniform.

"He is fully cleared," Oats said after the game. "Just was not the game to give him some minutes with the way they played, with all their picks on the perimeter. He is as of right now [fully cleared]. Again, things could change, but yes, he was physically able to participate in the game tonight."

Onyejiaka's collegiate career got off on the wrong foot, as he was declared "out indefinitely" due to a heart condition on Nov. 12, 2025 — two games into last season. He scored his first collegiate points in the season opener against North Dakota and also grabbed five rebounds in six minutes. In four minutes against St. John's he had one rebound.

A four-star center prospect who was originally a member of the 2026 class, Onyejiaka reclassified when committing to Alabama in the summer of 2025. The 6-foot-11, 265-pounder from The Newman School in Boston was ranked as the No. 11 center in the 2026 class, according to 247Sports.

After a couple of months being sidelined, head coach Nate Oats said on March 2 that Onyejiaka would continue to hold that status for the remainder of this past season. Oats had big expectations for the big man before the 2025-26 season tipped off, but Onyejiaka's setback couldn't make these aspirations a reality.

“He's a large man. He's young," Oats said before the 2025-26 season. "He's supposed to be a senior in high school today, which is crazy when you see him. But the biggest thing was we needed some rim protector…He's a lot more raw offensively, but getting him a year early, you can really start to develop him and hopefully he's a guy down the road who can really be special for us.”

Onyejiaka will be a key member of the Crimson Tide's front court — an area Oats emphasized to fix this offseason. Oats said after the 2025-26 season-ending loss to Michigan in the NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 that "we got to get bigger," and that's the theme of the new roster.

Including Onyejiaka, 12 of the 15 players on Alabama's roster is at least 6-foot-6. Every transfer is 6-foot-8 or taller, while every freshman besides guard Anderson Diaz is roughly 6-foot-6 apiece.

Alabama had four players (all guards) not in uniform against Furman: Aden Holloway, Anderson Diaz, Jaxon Richardson and Preston Murphy Jr. Holloway is suspended through the preseason and the first two games of the regular season after his marijuana charges were dismissed. Oats said before the game that Diaz and Murphy have upper-body injuries while Richardson has an illness.

Furman was the first of three scrimmages on Alabama's schedule, with Ole Miss (Oct. 15) and Auburn (Oct. 22) coming over the next two weeks in Birmingham.

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