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How Alabama basketball landed Mark Sears, putting Crimson Tide on path to Final Four

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How Alabama basketball landed Mark Sears, putting Crimson Tide on path to Final Four


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.

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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.’”

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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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Another chance for Alabama basketball to pursue Mark Sears

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.”

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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.”

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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?

The press from Nate Oats

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.

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“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.

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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.

What is Mark Sears’ place in Alabama basketball history?

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.”  

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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.





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Gov. Kay Ivey sets execution date for Jeremy Williams

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Gov. Kay Ivey sets execution date for Jeremy Williams


Governor Kay Ivey on Thursday set an execution date for death row inmate Jeremy Williams, who was convicted in the 2021 kidnapping, rape and murder of 5-year-old Kamarie Holland in Phenix City.

Williams is scheduled to be executed by the state’s three-drug lethal injection during a 30-hour window beginning at 12 a.m. August 13 and ending at 6 a.m. August 14. The execution date comes after the Alabama Supreme Court granted a request from Attorney General Steve Marshall’s office on June 16, authorizing the state to carry out the sentence.

In a letter to Alabama Department of Corrections Commissioner Greg Lovelace, Ivey said the Supreme Court’s June 16 order serves as the official death warrant for Williams.

“By law, I am required to specify the time frame for carrying out the sentence of death,” Ivey said. “Accordingly, I hereby order that Jeremy Lee Williams’s sentence of death be carried out within a time frame beginning on August 13, 2026, at 12:00 a.m. and ending on August 14, 2026, at 6:00 a.m.”

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Ivey noted that she retains the authority to commute the sentence before the execution takes place.

Williams, 34, was convicted in April 2024 on four counts of capital murder stemming from Holland’s death. Prosecutors charged him with capital murder during a kidnapping, capital murder during a rape, capital murder during first-degree sodomy and capital murder of a child younger than 14.

Authorities said Holland disappeared from her family’s home in Phenix City on December 13, 2021. Her body was discovered two days later inside an abandoned house less than a mile away. An autopsy determined that she had been sexually assaulted and strangled.

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In addition to the death sentence, Williams received several other prison terms. He was sentenced to life imprisonment for human trafficking and for knowingly producing recordings depicting the sexual abuse of a child. He also received another life sentence for a separate sexual abuse conviction, along with a 20-year sentence for conspiracy to commit human trafficking and a 10-year sentence for abuse of a corpse.

Unlike most death row inmates, Williams sought to speed up the execution process. During a hearing, he told the court that he accepted responsibility for his actions and wanted the sentence carried out.

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In 2025, Williams dismissed his attorneys and informed the court that he wished to waive any remaining appeals and proceed with his execution. Russell County Circuit Court Judge David Johnson determined that Williams was competent to make that decision and allowed him to forgo further legal challenges.

Under Alabama law, capital convictions automatically receive appellate review. The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals subsequently affirmed Williams’ conviction and death sentence in March.

After that review concluded, the Alabama Attorney General’s Office petitioned the Alabama Supreme Court in May to authorize an execution date. The court granted the request earlier this week, clearing the way for Ivey to schedule the execution.

If carried out as scheduled, Williams’ execution would occur nearly five years after Holland’s death and a little more than two years after he was sentenced to death.

Williams’ execution would be Alabama’s first by lethal injection since April 2025. The state’s three most recent executions were carried out using nitrogen hypoxia, which Alabama began using in 2024.

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Kids take center stage at Alabama Shakespeare Festival summer camp

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Kids take center stage at Alabama Shakespeare Festival summer camp


MONTGOMERY, Ala. (WSFA) – You don’t find too many camps where you learn how to slap someone. But this summer, you will in Montgomery. It’s one of many kids camps put on by the Alabama Shakespeare Festival.

“We have our Camp Shakespeare Junior which is our half day for the littles, kindergarten through 3rd grade,” said Cameron Williams, the ASF director of education. “We have Big Kid Shakespeare camp and everyone is learning all about ‘Much Ado About Nothing’.”

They learn about on stage combat, different acting techniques, and also how to be creative and think on their feet.

Kids take center stage at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival’s kids camp and their learning more than just theater here.(WSFA)

“I think theater skills are life skills. So, what makes this camp special is we’re doing more than just boosting literacy and doing theater things. We’re doing life skills, learning what it means to be team players, about discipline, and working with people who may have different personalities than you.”

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Different kids have different talents. And even if your child isn’t up for a lead role in the next play, this place can leave a lasting impact.

Kids take center stage at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival's kids camp and their learning more...
Kids take center stage at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival’s kids camp and their learning more than just theater here.(WSFA)

“If you’re looking for a place where your kid can come out of their shell, to learn how to speak in front of a group, and develop some confidence, this is the place to be.”

It’s a place that’s a real treasure in Montgomery, and its mining some young gems, who one day, could be on the big stage themselves. There are still more ASF camps going on this summer for pre-teens and even adults.

Not reading this story on the WSFA News App? Get news alerts FASTER and FREE in the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store!

Copyright 2026 WSFA. All rights reserved.



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Alabama Defense Contractor Agrees to $507K Settlement Over Cybersecurity Allegations

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Alabama Defense Contractor Agrees to 7K Settlement Over Cybersecurity Allegations


Huntsville-based defense contractor LOGZONE Inc. has agreed to pay $507,144 to resolve allegations that it failed to comply with cybersecurity requirements in contracts with the U.S. Department of the Navy, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

The settlement resolves claims brought under the False Claims Act alleging that LOGZONE knowingly submitted claims for payment while not meeting certain cybersecurity standards required under two Navy contracts.

Federal officials alleged that between May 2021 and March 2025, LOGZONE did not implement specific cybersecurity controls outlined in National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Special Publication 800-171. The standards are designed to protect sensitive defense information handled by government contractors.

According to the Justice Department, the deficiencies were identified during an assessment conducted by the Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA). The evaluation resulted in LOGZONE receiving a score of -170 on a scale ranging from -203 to 110, indicating significant gaps in compliance with required security controls.

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The government alleged that the missing cybersecurity measures could have increased the risk of unauthorized access to sensitive information or the exploitation of company systems.

The settlement does not include a determination of liability. As part of the agreement, LOGZONE will pay $507,144 to resolve the allegations.

Federal officials said the enforcement action reflects ongoing efforts to ensure government contractors comply with cybersecurity obligations tied to federal contracts, particularly those involving sensitive defense information.

The investigation and settlement involved the Justice Department’s Civil Division, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Alabama, the Department of the Navy, the Defense Contract Management Agency, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, and the Department of the Army Criminal Investigation Division.

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Additional details regarding corrective actions taken by the company were not immediately available.



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