Rece Davis was a prophet.

“This is early in the building stage,” the ESPN College Gameday host said in early March during a visit to Tuscaloosa. “And I really believe that Nate Oats will get Alabama to the Final Four.”

The Alabama alum might not have been thinking it was going to happen so soon. Most didn’t expect it this season, from a Crimson Tide squad that had such obvious flaws.

But he wound up correct. With a win over Clemson in the Elite Eight, Oats did it.

It’s the first one in Alabama program history. Wimp Sanderson never got there, even with the great teams he put together.

Mark Gottfried couldn’t do it, even with Antoine Pettway and the 2004 Elite Eight team that had the previous deepest run ever at Alabama. Last season’s team, with so much NBA talent and a No. 1 seed in the Big Dance stalled out in the Sweet Sixteen.

Instead, the first group to represent Alabama in the Final Four is a group that even Oats admitted throughout the season was deeply flawed. The 2023-24 Crimson Tide couldn’t play defense, couldn’t win close games in non-conference, stalled out offensively toward the end of the regular-season and one-and-doned the SEC Tournament.

That’s March though.

“I think our players understand the enormity of the game,” Oats said before the game. “And I think their preparation, their effort will match their understanding of how important this game is.”

On a rainy day in Los Angeles, Alabama finally got it done. Crimson Tide Sports Network play-by-play announcer Chris Stewart bellowed his catch phrase, “Let’s get out of here,” into a courtside microphone.

For the first time ever, those words were followed with six new ones.

“And go to the Final Four.”

It wasn’t easy. Nothing has ever been easy for this team.

Clemson got out to a lead in the first half. Alabama looked stagnant offensively, the Tigers figuring out exactly how to stop one of the nation’s best attacks.

The Clemson lead got out to 13 points, but the Tide never quit. Oats and company figured out what wasn’t working and kept at it, completing the comeback and punching their ticket to Arizona.

The group that did it will be remembered as long as there is Alabama basketball. It’s not the No. 1-seed full of NBA talent that took the court in Coleman Coliseum for the 2022-23 campaign, this one was built differently.

There’s the point guard from Muscle Shoals, Mark Sears, who had to start his career at Ohio before finding his way back to his home state, where he became the engine that drove the Tide. Aaron Estrada, who went from St. Peters, to Oregon, to Hofstra, eventually landing at Alabama for his final year of eligibility and settling in as a regular starter.

Grant Nelson, the big man from North Dakota, with the Tide to try and improve his NBA stock, who struggled with consistency but came through in the Sweet Sixteen with the game of his life. Nick Pringle, the forward from small-town South Carolina, who was suspended twice for internal reasons before blossoming as a leader on and off the court for Alabama, playing huge minutes with a foot injury throughout the tournament.

There’s others. Plenty of stories, up and down the roster.

It’s a group that was clearly flawed. After Alabama gave up 117 points in a loss to Kentucky late in SEC play, Oats seemed to give up hope of the defense returning to form.

“If the defense isn’t fixable, we’re not gonna be able to win any big games,” Oats said that day in Rupp Arena. “I don’t know that it’s fixable where it’d be like we were last year where we’re third in the country. It’s past the point of doing that.”

Fortunately for Alabama, it had one of the best offenses in the country. Turns out you only need so many stops if you’re capable of running up 100 points on a regular basis.

But by the SEC Tournament, the team looked done. A loss to Florida in the quarterfinals made it seem like the season was nearing an end.

Wins over Charleston and Grand Canyon proved that wrong. The upset against North Carolina gave Alabama the chance to do something unprecedented, the comeback over Clemson ensured that it’s house money from here on out.

Of course, the team isn’t ready to board the jet back to Tuscaloosa National Airport.

“A lot of us come here from a lot of different places,” Pringle said Thursday. “We’ve been through adversity. We’ve been battle-tested. So, Just to be here in this moment, it means a lot to us, the fan base, the coaches, everybody here. So, it’s just amazing to be in this setting, and we don’t want to stop here. We want to keep going.”

Pulling that off will be another tall task. UConn is the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament, features a 7-foot-2, 280-pound big man in Donovan Clingan, and specializes in putting teams to sleep early.

Alabama has to avoid a 30-point run like Illinois gave up in the Elite Eight. It needs to figure out ways to get defensive stops against another of college basketball’s best offense.

That’s for Oats and company to figure out. The game tips off at 7:49 p.m. CT on TBS, and the Tide is an 11.5-point underdog.

Not many outsiders are picking the Tide. Though, as Pringle pointed out, that’s nothing new.

“That’s the one thing that drives me, ultimately,” Pringle said. “I love proving people wrong. That’s the best feeling in the world, proving people wrong.”