No. 1 Auburn vs. No. 2 Alabama in College Basketball, How Did We Get Here?

In a state entrenched in football tradition, Nate Oats and Bruce Pearl have transformed the Tide and Tigers to the two best teams in college basketball.

Alabama Head Coach Nate Oats greets Auburn head coach Bruce Pearl before the game against Auburn at Coleman Coliseum in Tuscaloosa, AL on Wednesday, Jan 24, 2024 / Alabama Athletics

A little over a decade ago when Alabama and Auburn were trading Bowl Championship Series and Southeastern Conference championships back and forth, it wasn’t unusual for a fan to buy a ticket to a basketball game between the two schools the following spring just to see the presentation of the Iron Bowl trophy at halftime. After getting a glance at their favorite football coach and players to yell “Roll Tide” or “War Eagle,” they could head for the exits.

The basketball game still had meaning because any time the Crimson Tide and Tigers face off in the state of Alabama, it invokes a level of passion that is hard to find elsewhere around the country. But basketball wasn’t the main event. 

Now, that couldn’t be farther from the truth, starting with the $400 get-in price. The programs will meet up inside Coleman Coliseum on Saturday afternoon as the two best teams in college basketball in the first No. 1 vs. No. 2 matchup in SEC basketball history. 

It’s not that basketball didn’t matter in the state before. Alabama and Auburn had some legendary players and coaches with names like Leon Douglas, Charles Barkley, Wimp Sanderson and Cliff Ellis. Alabama had a little more overall success, but as of 2018, neither team had ever made a Final Four. And it had been almost two decades since either school had won the SEC regular season and almost three decades since Alabama or Auburn had hoisted the SEC tournament trophy. 

Within the last six years, both schools have broken through the glass ceiling to the Final Four–– Auburn first with Bruce Pearl in 2019, and Nate Oats following in 2024 with Alabama. Instead of trading SEC titles on the gridiron, it’s now happening on the court with either Auburn or Alabama winning the SEC regular season or tournament in six of the last seven seasons. 

Changes like this don’t happen overnight, though. How did a state and conference that dominated the college football landscape produce the two best teams in college basketball? It all started with an emphasis on basketball from the conference.

"We need to get better."

Dawson Wade served as a student manager for the Alabama basketball team from 2016 to 2020. He grew up in the state of Alabama and most of his fandom was dedicated toward football with basketball as more of an afterthought.

"It always felt like a bonus if we were good," Wade said. "Growing up here, it was never the priority, and it was never really the top. SEC wise, it was always Kentucky and usually Florida or Tennessee were also pretty good, but beyond that there was just not a lot. And used to, whenever Kentucky came to town, it was just like, ‘Just hope we can keep it close.’"

A quick look at current bracketology projections have as many as 13 or 14 SEC teams in the 2025 March Madness field. There are nine SEC teams in the latest AP Top 25 with Auburn and Alabama claiming the top-two spots.

But if you rewind the clock to exactly a decade ago, there were only two SEC teams, Kentucky and Arkansas, that were ranked when the 2015 SEC Tournament rolled around. Only five schools represented the SEC in the NCAA Tournament that year.

"This whole year being as good as it’s been has thoroughly changed the perception of things, but I think this has been building for a while," Sports Illustrated national college basketball writer Kevin Sweeney said. "I think back to not even a decade ago when it felt like it was Kentucky and sometimes Florida and who else cared, right? And I think the level of commitment and investment across the board has been massive. When you do that, you change the game in a lot of ways."

The SEC was in the middle of a dominant run of national titles in football and was also consistently the best league in college baseball and softball in the 2010s. SEC commissioner Greg Sankey wanted his league to be as good at basketball.

Alabama athletic director Greg Byrne doesn't remember the exact timing but told Alabama Crimson Tide On SI/BamaCentral he thinks it was about eight to 10 years ago that the SEC started putting an emphasis on basketball.

Mar 30, 2024; Los Angeles, CA, USA; Alabama Crimson Tide head coach Nate Oats cuts the net after defeating the Clemson Tigers in the finals of the West Regional of the 2024 NCAA Tournament at Crypto.com Arena. / Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

"We were struggling from a basketball product standpoint as a conference," Byrne said. "And Greg Sankey and the SEC working with the ADs, and of course in support from the presidents and chancellors, said, ‘We need to get better.’ Mike Tranghese (former Big East commissioner) was involved in helping develop a plan for basketball for the conference." 

The plan included multiple things besides just monetary investment. It required commitment from the universities, hiring the right coaches, building better facilities (practice or competition), smarter non-conference scheduling and also donor support and investment. All that would hopefully lead to getting and developing some of the best players in the country, more fan support and elevated on-court results.

It has since required adaptability with changes to the transfer portal and the legalization of NIL deals, but the SEC has remained on the forefront.

One of the clearest signs of investment repeatedly brought up by those in the know of college basketball was the SEC's newest wave of coaches.

The coaches

Pearl was hired to be the men's basketball coach at Auburn in 2014 while Jeff Shearer was still working as sports director at WSFA in Montgomery, Alabama. Shearer had covered both Alabama and Auburn for over two decades in the heart of the state before becoming Auburn's Director of Strategic Communications in 2016.

"You had a feeling it was going to be different under Bruce," Shearer said. "He’d won everywhere he’d been. So there was no reason to believe that he couldn't have a measure of success at Auburn based on his resume and his track record. However, I don't think anybody could have expected that it would be to the degree it has been under his now 11 seasons, with two SEC regular season championships, two SEC tournament championships and a Final Four run. Even the most hopeful or optimistic Auburn fan couldn't have expected that."

In his opening press conference held at Auburn Arena, Pearl said he would have Auburn competing for championships. He was boldly calling his shot.

Pearl was inheriting a program that had only made the NCAA tournament twice since the turn of the millennium. Four seasons in, he had the Tigers winning the SEC regular season title. By Year 5, Auburn reached its first Final Four in program history.

"I thought he did a really good job of getting that incremental growth early on, doing just enough to show the progress," Sweeney said. "I thought that third year was very important where you are at least competitive and maybe tangentially in the mix to play in the postseason. And I thought that was really important for them because it laid a foundation, and then in comes 2018 when they got a top-four seed, and a year later they’re in the Final Four.”

As Pearl was ascending on the Plains, Alabama was starting to make some noise in the college basketball world on the recruiting trail under Avery Johnson. His five-man signing class in 2017, highlighted by five-star Collin Sexton, changed the way top basketball recruits viewed Alabama.

"We knew that he was really good and potentially a program-changing guy, and it was kind of cool to just be considered," Wade said. "And then Avery and [Antoine] Pettway and the crew  did a really, really good job of selling him on everything Alabama basketball could be and everything that it could grow into with him there.

I will never forget sitting in our lounge watching him commit on ESPN and just everybody losing their minds.”

The 2017 class also featured John Petty, Herbert Jones, Alex Reese and Galin Smith. Sexton was off to the NBA as a lottery pick after one season and the rest would eventually end up playing for Oats with Petty, Jones and Reese being cornerstone pieces of Oats' first championship team.

"Avery was not a perfect basketball coach, but he was really good at building those initial relationships. That class changed Alabama basketball's trajectory, and Colin [Sexton] was obviously the spearhead of that."

- Dawson Wade

Thanks to a buzzer beater from Sexton in the 2018 SEC Tournament, Alabama returned to the NCAA Tournament under Johnson for the first time in six years. Yet one season later, while Auburn was making its run to the Final Four, Alabama was eliminated in the opening round of the NIT with a home loss to Norfolk State after going 18-15 that regular season.

Johnson didn't have a horrible season in his four years. Alabama never finished under .500, and he was bringing in some high-level talent. But Byrne still knew it was best for the program to move on.

"Avery did a lot of really good things for Alabama basketball, and we’ll always be appreciative of him," Byrne said. "When you make a change, you do it if you think it’s the right thing for the long-term health of the program. And that’s for any program. And that’s what we did."

Byrne and then deputy athletics director Jeff Purinton got to work interviewing candidates for the now vacant Alabama basketball head coaching position. They had interviewed four potential hires, and Oats was the fourth. Byrne said he was scheduled to talk to somebody else the next day, but after sitting down with Oats and his family, he knew he had his guy.

"One of the things you think about in athletics is how do you separate yourself from the competition?" Byrne said. "And when we hired Nate, I felt Nate separated us and was doing something that nobody else was doing. And he had the coaching background. He had the philosophic belief in what he did, and he had the numbers to back it up. And I thought he was ahead of the curve, and we’ve been fortunate."

Oats wasn't going to be in complete rebuilding mode like Pearl had been at Auburn, yet it still would take a little time to bring in the right players to fit his system. Alabama went 16-15 during his first season and likely would've needed to win out at the SEC tournament to make the NCAA field when both were abruptly cancelled because of COVID.

A win over then No. 4 and undefeated Auburn was one of the highlights of Oats' first season, but it was the Crimson Tide's subsequent loss at Neville Arena, nicknamed The Jungle, that really showed Wade what Alabama could be under Oats. Auburn jumped out to a 16-0 lead, and Alabama battled all the way back before losing in overtime.

Feb 12, 2020; Auburn, Alabama, USA; Auburn Tigers guard guard Allen Flanigan (22) and Alabama Crimson Tide guard Kira Lewis, Jr. (2) fight for the ball during the second half at Auburn Arena. / John Reed-Imagn Images

"That game was Oats’ system to a tee," he said. "I think we hit like 22 3s that night. Kira had a triple-double. Herb fouled out in six minutes with a broken hand. It was just like everything that Oats has preached the last few years, you saw glimpses of it that night with playing fast, shooting a lot of 3s, being incredibly tough, working your butt off for your teammates, everything like that.”

Even before he had a full roster of players optimized for his style of play, Oats had Alabama reaching the pinnacle of the SEC with the conference regular season and tournament titles in 2021. Two years later with Brandon Miller and Noah Clowney, Alabama was the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA tournament for the first time in program history. Last season, he helped lead the Tide to its first-ever Final Four.

"The thing that both of them share that I think has been really powerful for both places is they have the willingness and energy to go out and really build relationships throughout the state, build relationships with the students and bring excitement," Sweeney said. "Obviously those guys are awesome basketball coaches, but so much of of those jobs, I think, was getting people excited about the program again, getting people to care about what Alabama basketball was selling, getting people to care what Auburn basketball was selling."

The matchup: No. 1 vs. No. 2

Pearl and Oats have done such a good job at reaching milestones for both programs that even the most loyal fans would not have thought possible. The rivalry matchup will now hold the eyes of the college basketball world on Saturday as the top two teams in the country clash.

"There’s been more championships won, the last two Final Fours in the SEC have been Auburn and Alabama, and this year we’re 1 and 2," Oats said Friday. "So the Iron Bowl of basketball, if you will, — I don’t know it’s appropriate to call it that. The in-state rivalry in the state of Alabama whatever you want to call it — has increasingly become a national level game, and it’s all the way at the top now to where it’s 1 versus 2."

Saturday's game is not a finale. These two teams will meet at least one other time this season in the regular season finale at Neville Arena in Auburn with a regular season crown potentially on the line. They could face again in the SEC Tournament, and both teams hope to be the one cutting down the nets in San Antonio in April.

So while it isn't a finale, it does feel like a culmination. It's a culmination of the level of college basketball that has been reached in the SEC, but more specifically in the state of Alabama. These schools, these teams, this game means something to the people that live here. Now, it just means a little bit more to everyone else.

"There's been a lot of great basketball teams in the SEC, and a lot of them are in Lexington, Kentucky, but the first 1 vs. 2 is the University of Alabama and Auburn University," Shearer said. "So I think anybody who has any type of emotional or financial— any type of investment at all in that— needs to celebrate.”

Read more on BamaCentral:

feed

All-Time No. 1 vs. No. 2 in Men's College Baskeball

Regular Season
Dec. 21, 1954: No. 1 Kentucky 70, No. 2 Utah 65
Dec. 14, 1964: No. 2 Michigan 87, No. 1 Wichita State 85
Jan. 20, 1968: No. 2 Houston 71, No. 1 UCLA 69
Dec. 15, 1973: No. 1 UCLA 84, No. 2 North Carolina State 66
Jan. 19, 1974: No. 2 Notre Dame 71, No. 1 UCLA 70
Jan. 26, 1974: No. 2 UCLA 94, No. 1 Notre Dame 75
Nov. 29, 1975: No. 1 Indiana 84, No. 2 UCLA 64
Dec. 26, 1981: No. 1 North Carolina 82, No. 2 Kentucky 69
Jan. 9, 1982: No. 1 North Carolina 65, No. 2 Virginia 60
Dec. 15, 1984: No. 1 Georgetown 77. No. 2 DePaul 57
Feb. 2, 1985: No. 2 Georgetown 85, No. 1 St. John's 69
Feb. 4, 1986: No. 1 North Carolina 78, No. 2 Georgia Tech 77 (OT)
Feb. 13, 1990: No. 2 Missouri 77, No. 1 Kansas 71
Feb. 10, 1991: No. 1 UNLV 112, No. 2 Arkansas 105
Feb. 3, 1994: No. 2 North Carolina 89, No. 1 Duke
Feb. 5, 1998: No. 2 North Carolina 97, No. 1 Duke 73
Dec. 10, 2005: No. 1 Duke 97, No. 2 Texas 66
Feb. 25, 2007: No. 2 Ohio State 49, No. 1 Wisconsin 48
Feb. 23, 2008: No. 2 Tennessee 66, No. 1 Memphis 62
Nov. 12, 2013: No. 2 Michigan State 78, No. 1 Kentucky 74
Jan. 4, 2016: No. 1 Kansas 109, No. 2 Oklahoma 106 (3OT)
Nov. 14, 2017: No. 1 Duke 88, No. 2 Michigan State 81
Nov. 5, 2019: No. 2 Kentucky 69, No. 1 Michigan State 62
Nov. 23, 2021: No. 1 Gonzaga 83, No. 2 UCLA 63

Postseason
March 26, 1949: No. 1 Kentucky 46, No. 2 Oklahoma A&M 36 (national championship)
March 23, 1957: No. 1 North Carolina 54, No. 2 Kansas 53 (3OT) (national championship)
March 18, 1960: No. 2 California 77, No. 1 Cincinnati 69 (Final Four)
March 25, 1961: No. 2 Cincinnati 70, No. 1 Ohio State 65 (OT) (national championship)
March 24, 1962: No. 2 Cincinnati 71, No. 1 Ohio State 59 (national championship)
March 20, 1965: No. 2 UCLA 91, No. 1 Michigan 80 (national championship)
March 18, 1966: No. 1 Kentucky 83, No. 2 Duke 79 (Final Four)
March 22, 1968: No. 2 UCLA 101, No. 1 Houston 69 (Final Four)
March 25, 1974: No. 1 North Carolina State, No. 2 UCLA, 80-77 (2OT) (Final Four)

SEE ALSO: Why Nate Oats Criticized Two Veteran Alabama Basketball Players