There they go again, that elite UAB video team, setting a tone, raising the bar, raising the hair on the back of your neck and raising expectations that something special this way comes.

This time, it’s a hype video for UAB basketball’s curtain call in Conference USA. It’ll be the last time the Blazers play in that conference tournament, behind actual curtains, in a building meant for football, in a league that once was home to basketball giants but suffered serious shrinkage in that regard through the years.

UAB has been the constant. From Gene Bartow to Andy Kennedy. From 1990, when the league started as the Great Midwest, to 1995, when it morphed into Conference USA, to 2023 as the only remaining founding member says goodnight and good luck. AAC, here we come.

If UAB’s last time in the Ford Center at The Star in Frisco, Texas, is anything like the last time, there will be dragons, and they will be dancing. Anything can happen in March, but history demands the Blazers step up and walk out of this once-great league with one last trophy.

Hence, the hype video’s theme, “Defend the Crown,” voiced by the perfect narrator, Mo Finley. UAB basketball history is studded with star guards that were undersized and overlooked until winning time arrived. Finley. Squeaky Johnson. Aaron Johnson. Jordan “Jelly” Walker. That’s a short list of big hearts unafraid of big moments.

Finley, from LaFayette High School, arrived at what was then the BJCC Arena for the 1999 AHSAA State Finals with exactly zero scholarship offers. Two weeks later, after he scored 41 points in the semifinals and 30 in the finals, UAB offered, and he accepted. Five years later, he hit the ice-water jumper to take down No. 1 overall seed Kentucky in the NCAA Tournament.