On one end of the Facetime video call in late May was Labaron Philon.

On the call with him: Alabama men’s basketball assistant coach Preston Murphy. And Philon had a question for him.

What would you do if I said I was coming back?

“Labaron’s got a joker’s personality,” Murphy told AL.com Tuesday.

But Philon wasn’t joking. He made it official and announced publicly May 28, the night of the deadline for him to remove his name from the NBA Draft process and maintain his college eligibility.

“We were so excited,” Murphy said. “It was kind of like a shock. In my mind, he was gone.”

The door never fully closed on Philon returning to Alabama for his sophomore season. His public comments seemed to all but close the door completely. But as it turns out, the door always remained slightly ajar.

It was just a matter of would Philon actually step through it.

At first, Philon declared for the NBA Draft and did not publicly indicate he had maintained his college eligibility. But he had. The guard told ESPN he was “all in on starting my pro career” on April 14.

By April 29, he cracked the door open ever so slightly to a return to college.

“I would say 100% draft, but you know, things can change,” Philon said on The Schuz Show.

“You never know. But I would say I love ‘Bama. The whole program, the school, the state. It was all love when I was playing there. I never received any hatred or nothing like that. Walking around school and just being a regular kid again was mostly the most fun part for me. I’ll never take that for granted. But I’m all in on the draft right now because I feel like I want to be a pro. You never know what can happen. We’ll just have to wait and see.”

Then on May 14, Philon told ESPN he’s staying in the NBA Draft and answered “yeah” when asked if the door was closed on a return to Alabama.

Meanwhile, the Crimson Tide was trying to prepare for the 2025-26 season.

“We were preparing and constructing a roster that didn’t have him included,” Murphy said.

Alabama had pieced together most of its roster by that point, adding compelling talent via the transfer portal with the likes of Noah Williamson, Taylor Bol Bowen and Jalil Bethea. But the roster was still lacking at guard.

Alabama was actually set to play host to USC transfer guard Desmond Claude that weekend. Then Philon changed his mind.

“We were just ecstatic he’s back,” guard Houston Mallette said. “He’s going to help out the team a lot. I felt like that was the one position we really needed and were looking for.”

Mallette’s phone also rang one night in late May. He didn’t recognize the number, though. It was a group FaceTime call, though. Included on the video call he saw all the returners: Latrell Wrightsell Jr., Aden Holloway and Aiden Sherrell, plus one unknown number.

The unknown number: Philon’s. He had changed it. But that wasn’t the biggest surprise. No. The true surprise was he revealed his plan to return.

“I didn’t know he was coming back,” forward Aiden Sherrell said. “Coach kept it a secret from us. When we found out, we were super excited.”

As part of the call, Philon also had a message to send.

“His whole mindset when he came back, what he told us on the phone and told us in the locker room is we have unfinished business,” Mallette said. “We want to win the whole thing. We want to win it all. We feel like we came up short on our goals. That’s kind of the attitude of our locker room: We’re really hungry. I think he’s incredibly hungry. He’s going to do great.”

Nick Kelly is an Alabama beat writer for AL.com and the Alabama Media Group. Follow him on X and Instagram.