This wild, beautiful, long-awaited moment for Alabama basketball
Brian and Jenny Neill had to time things just right to avoid a tornado.
Tornado warnings popped up in Alabama one March night in 2023, and the Neills were trying to drive from Tuscaloosa to Huntsville. When one warning hit, the Neills were driving south of the area. Then they went north, getting home right before the next tornado warning. At one point that night, a tornado touched down in their county. The Neills bobbed and weaved to avoid a twister on what wasn’t the safest time to be traveling.
“We were so over the moon, we didn’t even care,” Jenny Neill said.
That night, Alabama men’s basketball had just beat Auburn in overtime to secure the SEC regular season title, and the Neills were there to witness it. About two weeks later, the Crimson Tide won the SEC Tournament and received the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament.
Since then, Alabama has reached two Sweet 16s as well as the first Final Four in program history this past spring.
“It’s just so unbelievable to see the high level of play consistently from this team,” said Neill, a fan since the 1990s. “That’s what we haven’t had in so long.”
The past few years, Alabama has transformed from a program with solid history into a nationally relevant program competing with the best in the sport. Coach Nate Oats has been at the center of it, with his teams winning the SEC regular season title twice, the SEC Tournament twice and then making a Final Four appearance in April.
Now, preparing to open his sixth season Monday (8 p.m. CT, ESPNU) against UNC Ashville at Coleman Coliseum, Oats has the No. 2 team in the country, the highest preseason ranking ever for the program. For what was a perennial bubble team not even a decade ago, Alabama finds itself in a moment like never before. In a position to chase a championship fresh off a Final Four, the Crimson Tide has created a surreal and wild moment for the fans who’ve been there through many decades.
“There’s no question it’s the most highly anticipated season,” said Dick Coffee, a longtime fan from Birmingham. “It’s just exciting. Just can’t wait for it to start.”
Alabama men’s basketball finds itself in a moment like never before: Fresh off a Final Four with plans to go win a national championship.AL.com illustration/Photos via AP, SEC
Coffee’s been around since the C.M. Newton era. Now 68, Coffee listened to games on the radio in the 1960s and attended a few games at Foster Auditorium. Then he kept going to games when Memorial Coliseum (what is now Coleman Coliseum) opened in 1968.
Ever since the 1970s, Coffee estimates he has attended about 20-25 games per year.
Over that time, Coffee has witnessed highs such as coach Wimp Sanderson’s teams making 10 of 11 NCAA Tournaments from the early 1980s to the early 1990s. Then Coffee watched as coach Mark Gottfried led Alabama to five straight, including the first Elite Eight appearance for the program in 2003-04.
Coffee also experienced the lows, mainly during the span from 2006 through 2019, when Alabama made the NCAA Tournament only twice over 14 seasons. He was watching in those rough years, with all those NIT trips under Anthony Grant and Avery Johnson. Coffee was one of the 2,086 in attendance in March 2019 when Alabama lost to Norfolk State at Coleman Coliseum in the first round of the NIT.
“That was a real dismal night,” Coffee said. “And that wasn’t that long ago.”
It’s moments like those when the first Final Four trip in program history couldn’t have felt farther away.
“I didn’t expect it,” Coffee said. “I really did not expect it. I think the closest we came was in the 70s, that team that lost to the last undefeated team Indiana … That team could have won a national championship.”
Joe Corona, 57, cried that day as a young boy sitting in the den of his home in Vestavia Hills. He watched on TV as Indiana beat Alabama 74-69 in Baton Rouge on March 18, 1976. This was right before seeding began in the NCAA Tournament, and Alabama got a tough draw in the second round with the undefeated Hoosiers who went on to finish 32-0 and win the national championship. The Crimson Tide finished that season 23-5.
“In my lifetime, without a doubt, ’76, ’87, this year, and I felt our ’90 and ’91 team were definitely good enough to possibly cut the nets down,” Corona said. “We had other teams good enough to get to the (Final) Four. But this is different.”
Alan Worrell, 77, of Montgomery has also attended games since the Newton era. Worrell became a season-ticket holder in 1999, and in 2022-23, he became a believer Alabama could soon reach the Final Four, even though the Crimson Tide fell in the Sweet 16 that season.
Through the decades, Worrell never gave up hope.
“It’s what you live for,” Worrell said.
And sometimes must wait for. Worrell did. So too did Neill. And Corona. Coffee, too. Now, finally, these dutiful fans have their moment, their surreal moment, to enjoy and support a nationally relevant program.
“Everybody is really geared up and ready to see them get to that pinnacle they’ve really never gotten to before in making the championship,” Worrell said. “That’s what we’re all counting on and hoping for.”
Nick Kelly is an Alabama beat writer for AL.com and the Alabama Media Group. Follow him on X and Instagram.
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