No. 19/19 Men's Basketball Begins SEC Tournament Friday as the No. 3 Seed in the Quarterfinals

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – For the second straight season, the No. 19/19 Alabama men's basketball begins the 2024 Southeastern Conference Tournament with a double-bye after earning the No. 3 seed in this year's event. The Crimson Tide will open play in the quarterfinals Friday night at Bridgestone Arena against the winner of Thursday night's matchup between No. 6 Florida and No. 11 Georgia.

The Tide enters this year's SEC Tournament as the defending champions, as head coach Nate Oats has guided his teams to a pair of championships and is a perfect 6-0 at Bridgestone Arena during his tenure at Alabama. The Crimson Tide ended postseason play after compiling a 21-10 overall record and a 13-5 record in conference play in the regular season.

The Broadcast

Friday's game is set to tip off at approximately 8:30 p.m. CT and will be aired on the SEC Network with Tom Hart (play-by-play), Dane Bradshaw (analyst) and Alyssa Lang (sideline) on the call.

The radio broadcast can be heard on the Crimson Tide Sports Network with Chris Stewart (play-by-play) and Bryan Passink (analyst) on the call, while Tom Stipe (engineer) is turning the dials. The pregame show will begin one hour prior to tipoff.

Notes You Need To Know

The Crimson Tide is looking to win its third SEC Tournament title in the last four seasons under Nate Oats with each of the previous two coming in Nashville (2021, 2023)
Since Oats arrived at Alabama in 2019-20, the Crimson Tide has won a league-best 62 SEC contests
Oats' record in the SEC Tournament is 6-1 with a winning percentage of .857, which is the second highest winning percentage since 1979, behind Rick Pitino (17-1, .944)
For the first time since 1986-87, the Crimson Tide achieved back-to-back regular seasons with 13 SEC wins
Mark Sears was named to the Sporting News All-America Second Team, becoming the third UA player under Oats to earn Sporting News All-America honors, joining Brandon Miller (Second Team, 2023 and Herbert Jones (Third Team, 2021)
Sears, a 2024 Coaches and Associated Press First Team All-SEC selection, was named 1 of 5 finalists for the Bob Cousy Award, which annually recognizes the top point guard in Division I
Sears has scored 654 points this season, which ranks No. 3 in UA history for most points scored in a single season and 94 points from the program record set by Reggie King (747 points) in 1979
Sears is one of two Division I players and the only Power 5 player that has 650 points, 125 assists, 120 rebounds and 75 three-pointers this season
Sears has now scored 20-or-more points in 21 games this season, the most by an Alabama player since Reggie King's school record 23 games in 1978-79
Per OptaSTATS, Sears and Estrada are the first Division I duo since 1996-97 to both have at least 410 points, 125 assists, 120 rebounds, 50 three-pointers made and 40 steals during the regular season, surpassing St. Joseph's Jameer Nelson and Delonte West in 2003-04
Alabama is one of three schools (Purdue and Wright State) in the country that has two players on its current roster that has scored at least 1,800 points throughout their career in Sears (2,008 points) and Estrada (1,888 points)

For all the latest information on the team, follow AlabamaMBB on X, Instagram and Facebook. General athletic news can be found @UA_Athletics on X and Instagram and Alabama Athletics on Facebook.