Alabama
How Many 2025 NBA First-Round Draft Picks Did Alabama Face?
Alabama men’s basketball head coach Nate Oats loves a challenge.
The Crimson Tide has had the toughest strength of schedule in the country for back-to-back years. It’s resulted in some losses, but Alabama’s ability to build off the failure has led to back-to-back Elite Eight appearances.
“I think [tough schedules have] worked for us,” Oats said on May 14. “You look at the success we’ve had––we’ve had the No. 1 strength schedule in the country the last two years…But two years ago, when it was really tough, we lost three straight non-conference games. We still ended up going to the Final Four. So I believe we’re the only team in the country that’s played in the last two Elite Eights. So I think it works.
The first round of the 2025 NBA Draft was on Wednesday night in Brooklyn, N.Y, and the strength of Alabama’s schedule (including the NCAA Tournament) became crystal clear as the names were announced. Here is every 2025 first-round pick that the Crimson Tide faced this past season.
Pick Number, Player, College
No. 1 Cooper Flagg, Duke (NCAA Tournament Elite Eight)
No. 2 Dylan Harper, Rutgers (Players Era Festival semifinals)
No. 4 Kon Knueppel, Duke (NCAA Tournament Elite Eight)
No. 5 Ace Bailey, Rutgers (Players Era Festival semifinals)
No. 6 Tre Johnson, Texas (SEC regular season)
No. 7 Jeremiah Fears, Oklahoma (SEC regular season)
No. 8 Egor Demin, BYU (NCAA Tournament Sweet 16)
No. 9 Collin Murray-Boyles, South Carolina (SEC regular season)
No. 10 Khaman Maluach, Duke (NCAA Tournament Elite Eight)
No. 18 Walter Clayton Jr. Florida (SEC regular season, SEC Tournament)
No. 20 Kasparas Jakucionis, Illinois (C.M. Newton Classic)
No. 21 Will Riley, Illinois (C.M. Newton Classic)
No. 22 Drake Powell, North Carolina (SEC/ACC Challenge)
No. 23 Asa Newell, Georgia (SEC regular season)
Alabama men’s basketball closed last season with a 28-9 (13-5 SEC) record, and following a loss to Duke in the NCAA Tournament Elite Eight, the Crimson Tide finished 2024-25 as the No. 6 team in the AP Top 25 and No. 6 in the Coaches Poll.
Not a bad overall record with these first-round draft picks in mind.
Round 2 of the 2025 NBA Draft continues at 7 p.m. CT on ESPN. Alabama guards Mark Sears and Chris Youngblood, forward Grant Nelson and center Clifford Omoruyi each hope to hear their name called, but the mock drafts are giving the Crimson Tide slim chances.
Welcome to BamaCentral’s “Just a Minute,” a video series featuring Alabama Crimson Tide on SI’s beat writers. Multiple times per week, the writers will group up or film solo to provide their take on a topic concerning the Crimson Tide or the landscape of college sports.
Watch the above video as BamaCentral baseball beat reporter Theodore Fernandez reflects on the first two months of Alabama baseball’s season and explains why the team has left much to be desired despite success on the field.
At face value, this has been a successful campaign for Alabama baseball. Entering the final four weeks of the regular season, a Crimson Tide team that was projected to finish No. 13 in the SEC is 9-9 in conference play, and just one game out of fourth place. The first sweep of Auburn in more than a decade, the Frisco Classic title, and a road series win over Oklahoma are big-time results that speak to the potential Alabama clearly possesses.
But it continues to appear increasingly likely that this team may not realize that potential.
There are issues up and down the roster. The bulk of the attention has been on Justin Lebron’s struggles. His career-high in errors and underwhelming offensive numbers have led to his draft stock beginning to fall, and it led to him even being experimentally moved out of the two-hole for a game against Arkansas.
Players like Luke Vaughn and Jason Torres have struggled, and there is still a significant amount of regular roster experimentation occurring on a week-to-week basis. Will Plattner, Justin Osterhouse, Chase Kroberger, Andrew Purdy and Peyton Steele are all among the players who have started games over the past two weekends and still appear to have undefined roles.
The biggest question remains the bullpen, as it is nearly impossible to predict what it will provide on any given day. There was a two-weekend stretch where it gave up just five earned runs over 22.1 combined innings against Auburn and Oklahoma, willing Alabama to wins in games where the bats did not show up. Then there have been the lows: implosions against Arkansas and Texas that cast serious doubt on the unit’s ability to show up in big moments.
In all of those areas where the team has struggled, there is hope of a turnaround. There are the bullpen’s aforementioned elite stretches. There are the web-gem plays in short by Lebron, that will leave him with one of the most impressive defensive highlight reels of any player in the nation. There’s Torres responding to a 1-for-12 weekend against the Razorbacks with a two-hit game where he drove in one of Alabama’s two runs to avoid a sweep against Texas last Sunday.
In a sport defined by randomness, where the thinnest of margins can mean the difference between going home in a regional or making a run to Omaha, we simply have no way of knowing where Alabama will land.
Would we really expect it any other way?
That’s baseball.
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A “joyful” 10-year-old Alabama girl was found dead soon after being reported missing — with another juvenile charged with her murder.
Katheryn Bigbee, 10, was reported missing just before 11 p.m. Friday, when police were called to an undisclosed address in Calhoun County, AL.com reported.
“Officers responded immediately to the residence,” Piedmont Police Chief Nathan Johnson said in a statement. “They tragically discovered a deceased juvenile inside the home.”
It remains unclear where the house was, or whether it was the young girl’s family home — but another juvenile was soon taken into custody and hit with murder charges.
Their identity and connection to Bigbee have not been disclosed due to their age.
Bigbee’s cause of death also remains unclear, with police saying the investigation was still ongoing.
“Our family has been torn to pieces, and we have lost the most amazing, sweetest little girl,” relative Blake Trammel wrote on Facebook.
“She was a light in any room she walked into. I cannot express the pain, guilt, and emptiness that has come from all of this. We don’t have answers, only more questions,” he added.
The girl’s school also recalled her as a beloved member of its community.
“Our entire Piedmont Elementary School family is grieving as we remember a sweet little girl who brought smiles, kindness, and a bright light to our halls each day,” the school said in a statement.
“Katheryn had a joyful, spunky personality that made her truly special,” the school said. “She was an enthusiastic reader and will be remembered for the happiness she shared so freely.”
“She will always be a part of our school family, and her memory will live on in the hearts of her classmates, teachers, and all who knew and loved her.”
Alabama AHSAA softball key dates and top teams approaching the 2026 playoffs originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
Alabama’s AHSAA softball playoffs are just around the corner with three of the state’s top teams ranked in the national Top 15.
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The No. 5 Orange Beach [AL] Makos, No. 10 Thompson [Alabaster, AL] Warriors, and No. 15 Wetumpka [AL] Indians are all ranked in the most recent edition of the MaxPreps Top 50 with the start of Alabama’s postseason less than two weeks away.
Orange Beach was previously ranked No. 1 before losing to the South Warren [Bowling Green, KY] Spartans last week. Both teams were undefeated going into the contest, and the Barbers Hill [Mt. Belvieu, TX] Eagles took the Makos’ place at the top of the rankings following the loss.
WATCH: ALABAMA AHSAA SOFTBALL ON THE NFHS NETWORK
Key dates for the Alabama AHSAA softball playoffs
|
DATE |
PLAYOFF DEADLINES |
|
5/1-5/26 |
Area Tournaments |
|
5/11-14/26 |
Regional Tournaments |
|
5/18-22/26 |
State Tournaments |
National Top 50 contenders by classification
Alabama’s three nationally-ranked teams all compete in different classifications.
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Class 7A
The Thompson Warriors are 34-1-2, and they compete in the AHSAA’s top-level Class 7A ranks. The team’s only loss is to the No. 15 Wetumpka Indians in a 3-2 setback on April 3.
Class 6A
Wetumpka is 34-5, and as noted above, they are the only team to beat Thompson so far.
Class 4A
Orange Beach is the state’s top-ranked team despite competing at the AHSAA’s Class 4A level. Their loss to South Warren of Kentucky in a 6-1 setback on April 9 ended a 45-game win streak at the time. The Makos had only allowed 25 runs all season prior to the relative outburst by the Spartans.
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