GLENDALE, Ariz. – Antoine Pettway sat back, chewed on his sandwich and munched on his chips. Meanwhile, Mark Sears talked on the phone at the Subway.
That day in April 2022, on the campus at Ohio University, Sears was calling to tell coaches at other programs he wouldn’t be joining them. The guard phoned the likes of Gonzaga, Texas and more. He told them he knew where he was going. He would be playing for Alabama basketball.
That day, Sears was going to announce to the world he was transferring from Ohio to the Crimson Tide. The Muscle Shoals native was returning home.
He posted the graphic right there at the Subway with Pettway, who was then an Alabama basketball assistant coach.
“It was just amazing to see the delight in his face because he was going to have a chance to live out his dream and play for the University of Alabama,” Pettway told the Tuscaloosa News on Wednesday.
That decision not only changed Sears’ life, but it also would change Alabama basketball. Sears, two years later, has been the best player on the first Crimson Tide men’s team to reach the Final Four. Sears and Alabama will face UConn on Saturday at State Farm Stadium.
“I wanted to lead a team to get to the Final Four,” Sears said Thursday. “When I was in the transfer portal, that’s what I was telling every coach that recruited me: ‘I want to have the opportunity to lead you to the Final Four.’”
Two years later, he fulfilled it.
How did Alabama make the move and land a player who would eventually lead the Crimson Tide to the Final Four? Here’s the backstory of the program-altering roster move.
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Derek Rongstad walked into Pettway’s office two years ago with a message. Then Alabama’s video coordinator, Rongstad had to pass on what he learned about Sears.
This kid is better than anybody we’re recruiting. We need to jump all over him. This kid is really freaking good.
From that day on, Alabama was all in on trying to add Sears, who was in the transfer portal.
The Crimson Tide wanted to bring in a veteran guard. It had all kinds of exciting young talent set to join (Brandon Miller, Noah Clowney, etc.) but it wanted some experience to go with those youngsters. Enter Sears, who had spent two seasons at Ohio.
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Pettway, now the head coach at Kennesaw State, had known about Sears since he was 15. Pettway had watched him play on the AAU circuit. But Alabama, and most schools, didn’t offer Sears. He only had a few offers coming out of high school, and none at the high-major level.
Pettway said Sears has always been a competitor and made winning plays, but Sears’ shooting wasn’t as good back then. So he didn’t get recruited much.
“Mark was less than lightly recruited,” AAU coach Scott Whittle said in 2023. “I have been on in-home visits with coaches where I thought they were going to offer him, then they didn’t.”
That changed after two seasons at Ohio. Sears shot 40.8% from beyond the arc his second season and averaged 19.6 points, 5 rebounds and 4.1 assists per game.
Pettway started hearing Sears’ name again while talking to a scout who mentioned his next stop would be a trip to Ohio to watch Sears.
“That kind of sparked my interest,” Pettway said.
Once Sears decided to enter the transfer portal, a host of schools were interested in him. His hard work at Ohio had paid off.
“I just had the mentality that I want to prove people wrong,” Sears told The Tuscaloosa News in 2023. “That’s really how I looked at it. I just knew if I put my head down and kept working, good things were going to come.”
And they did, including an offer to play in his home state. Alabama was the first team to call the day he went into the transfer portal. It was Pettway who rang.
You ready to come home?
Sears didn’t make the decision to commit that first time Pettway called. He had to think about it first, of course.
That gave Alabama coach Nate Oats a chance to develop a relationship with Sears. Oats told Sears the plan Alabama had for him and how it would use him. He showed Sears that the Crimson Tide had a young talented team coming in, and that Alabama could be elite if it had a guy who can handle and shoot the ball such as Sears.
“Coach Oats did a tremendous job,” Pettway said. “He recruited him hard after we identified this was the guy we wanted to go after.”
After one conversation with Sears wrapped up, Oats immediately called Pettway.
I think Mark knows what he wants to do.
Once Sears got together with his family and prayed about it, he “just had a good feeling about it,” he said.
Auburn coach Bruce Pearl called to offer Sears the morning he committed to Alabama, “but it was kind of too late for it for me to make any decision,” Sears said in 2023.
He was going with the school that had pursued him instantly. He was coming back home to play for Alabama. He made the choice without even taking an official visit.
“Seeing the success Coach Oats had in the previous years, I just really saw that I could fit in his system,” Sears said Thursday.
Sears was the second-leading scorer behind Brandon Miller on an Alabama team that won the SEC and was the No. 1 overall seed in the 2023 NCAA Tournament. Then Sears became even better this season.
With Miller off to the NBA, Sears took the lead in 2023-24. He has averaged 21.5 points per game, shooting 43.4% from deep while providing clutch shooting in the NCAA Tournament. His efforts this season earned him consensus second-team All-America honors. Sears now owns Alabama’s single-season scoring record, something he broke during the Sweet 16 game against UNC.
“Offensively, he’s been one of the best players in the country all year,” Oats said. “We would not be in the Final Four if it wasn’t for Mark Sears’ defense, leadership. He’s turned it around a lot in regard to that the last month.”
So where does Sears rank among all-time Alabama players? There’s no better person to ask than Pettway, the former Alabama guard and assistant coach who grew up in the state.
“We’ve had some great players come through the University of Alabama, but Mark Sears, he’s stamped his legacy,” Pettway said. “He had had one of the most memorable NCAA Tournaments in the history of the University of Alabama. He’s going to go down as a legend in my book.”
Nick Kelly is the Alabama beat writer for The Tuscaloosa News, part of the USA TODAY Network, and he covers Alabama football and men’s basketball. Reach him at nkelly@gannett.com or follow him @_NickKelly on X, the social media app formerly known as Twitter.
The Alabama Crimson Tide are headed back to the Rose Bowl for the College Football Playoff.
One hundred years after Alabama football’s first appearance in the Rose Bowl on Jan. 1, 1926, the Tide will face No. 1 Indiana (13-0) in the CFP quarterfinals in Pasadena on New Year’s Day.
Alabama (11-3) rallied from a 17-0 first-half deficit to win its first-round playoff game, 34-24, against the Oklahoma Sooners (10-3) Friday night at Memorial Stadium in Norman.
Ty Simpson threw two touchdown passes to freshman receiver Lotzeir Brooks, cornerback Zabien Brown had a 50-yard interception return for touchdown, and Daniel Hill capped the scoring with a 6-yard touchdown run as the Tide closed the game by out-scoring Oklahoma 34-7 over the final 36:52.
Conor Talty added two clutch field goals in Alabama’s win, its 10th victory overall in the College Football Playoff since 2014, and its first since the Crimson Tide defeated the Cincinnati Bearcats, 27-6, in the Cotton Bowl on New Year’s Eve 2021.
After Alabama’s rally, Tide players did some celebrating on the Sooners’ field.
Follow us at @RollTideWire on X and like our page on Facebook for ongoing coverage of Alabama Crimson Tide news, notes and opinions.
NORMAN, Oklahoma — The stage was set for Oklahoma. Heck, the Sooners earned the right to set it. This was supposed to be the ushering in of a new era of postseason football for the No. 8 team in the country that had won 10 games in what was one of the toughest schedules this year.
No. 9 Alabama was even one of those teams that Oklahoma beat on its way to earning this spot. And Saturday night, all was going well for the Sooners. It was going so well, in fact, that after the first quarter, some Oklahoma fans might’ve peeked at flights and hotel rates for the Rose Bowl from inside Memorial Stadium.
And then the Alabama Crimson Tide curled and rolled the Sooners, 34-24, and are headed to Pasadena. After opening with 17 unanswered points, Oklahoma collapsed under the weight of that wave, becoming the only team in College Football Playoff history to blow a 17-point lead. And now, the Sooners have done it twice — before Saturday, in 2018 against Georgia.
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Here are my takeaways from Alabama’s College Football Playoff first-round victory against Oklahoma on Saturday:
NORMAN, OKLAHOMA: Zabien Brown #2 of the Alabama Crimson Tide stiff-arms John Mateer #10 of the Oklahoma Sooners during the second quarter during the 2025 College Football Playoff first-round game on December 19, 2025. (Photo by Brian Bahr/Getty Images)
Crimson Tide quarterback Ty Simpson is an avid reader and listener of college football news. Following the largest comeback win in Alabama postseason history, Simpson took a moment to facetiously thank media members for choosing Oklahoma to win on Saturday night.
“I guess we can thank you guys for that,” an emboldened Simpson said. “You guys kind of wrote us off in a sort of way. So I appreciate that.”
After building a three-score lead, the Sooners watched the Crimson Tide recover a fumbled punt, pick off Oklahoma quarterback John Mateer and return it 50 yards to the end zone — all before their First Team All-American kicker Tate Sandell missed not one but two field goals in the final minutes to solidify the worst collapse in College Football Playoff history.
Meanwhile, the Alabama Crimson Tide will prepare to take on No. 1 Indiana in the Rose Bowl for the CFP quarterfinal game. This team that punches back and played its best football with its back against the wall is one that the Hoosiers must prepare for on New Year’s Day.
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NORMAN, OKLAHOMA: John Mateer #10 of the Oklahoma Sooners is hit by Deontae Lawson #0 of the Alabama Crimson Tide during the first quarter during the College Football Playoff first-round game on December 19, 2025. (Photo by Brian Bahr/Getty Images)
The Crimson Tide began down — just like they did against Georgia in the SEC championship game. But the last three quarters of Saturday’s game demonstrated Alabama to be just who it says it is: the kind of team that can open with a loss to a bad Florida State and also be the first team in six years to walk into Sanford Stadium in Athens, Georgia, and come out with a win.
DeBoer’s task now is to find a way to make certain that the team that showed up at Georgia earlier this season and at Oklahoma in the first round is the same one against the Hoosiers. Linebacker Deontae Lawson said that’s his job too. But Bama’s best trait isn’t one that shows itself until it’s in a fight for its life.
“Man, I just think we’re a resilient team,” Lawson said. “And even though we were down 17-0, we didn’t really look at the scoreboard. Coach DeBoer always says, ‘Keep playing the game. The game will come back to you.’ … We just keep fighting.”
NORMAN, OKLAHOMA: Head coach Brent Venables of the Oklahoma Sooners speaks to an official during the fourth quarter against the Alabama Crimson Tide on December 19, 2025. (Photo by Brian Bahr/Getty Images)
Let’s look at the bigger ones:
These are blunders. Errors that aren’t forced but self-inflicted. It’s difficult to win any game with those kinds of mistakes on your drive chart. It’s nearly impossible in a game of this magnitude, against a team as talented and as resilient as the Crimson Tide.
NORMAN, OKLAHOMA: Keon Keeley #31 of the Alabama Crimson Tide celebrates after defeating the Oklahoma Sooners in the College Football Playoff first-round game. (Photo by Stacy Revere/Getty Images)
Oklahoma usually plays 50 Cent’s “Many Men” before the start of the fourth quarter. In an attempt to make a statement for its first CFP game at Owen Field, the Sooners brought the rapper himself out onto the field to perform the song for fans in a Hard to Kill Hoodie.
“I didn’t know it was live,” DeBoer said.
“I didn’t know who 50 Cent was,” Simpson said, “but I know that song.”
“We play that song at practice on Fridays,” Lawson said.
RJ Young is a national college football writer and analyst for FOX Sports. Follow him @RJ_Young.
Hello college football fans, and welcome to The Athletic’s live coverage of the 2025 College Football Playoff!
Yes, after a 2025 season full of an incredible amount of twists, turns, controversy and pure chaos, the second edition of the 12-team College Football Playoff gets underway tonight. Our opening matchup is a battle of blue-bloods whose first meeting this season contributed to that chaos, as No. 9 Alabama takes on No. 8 Oklahoma in Norman.
Follow along for live pregame build-up and the latest news, play-by-play updates and real-time analysis from The Athletic’s college football staff!
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