SEC TIPOFF 2024-25: Oats shrugs off Tide's pick as league's best
Alabama’s Mark Sears and coach Nate Oats appear on SEC Network’s coverage of SEC Tipoff on Tuesday. (Courtesy Unv. Alabama Athletic Media Relations)
By GRAHAM DUNN
BIRMINGHAM - Alabama head coach Nate Oats was hoping for to be a lower choice in the 2024-25 preseason basketball poll annually announced during the SEC basketball media day.
Instead, the Tide was picked to win the 2025 Southeastern Conference championship in voting by a select panel of both SEC and national media members.
“Last year we were picked fifth,” Oats said during Tuesday’s event, “and we’ve been picked fifth three times now. Two of those three we won the SEC regular and conference tournament titles and finished in the Final Four in the other one so I was hoping we would get picked fifth again.
“Our roster is not such that anybody is picking us fifth, so people have asked me whether we would rather come in under the radar and surprise people or -- obviously we got picked in the AP poll second, or be picked to win, and I'd say I'd much rather have the roster I currently have and deal with where we're picked, and we'll have to create some other type of motivational factors because we won't have a chip on our shoulder from getting picked fifth or whatever.”
Alabama went to the school’s first-ever Final Four following last year’s 13-5 finish in the SEC, which was good for a tie for second place. After a quick exit in the SEC Tourney, Alabama reeled off four wins over Charleston, Grand Canyon, North Carolina and Clemson to reach the national semifinals where it was defeated by eventual champion UConn.
“This league is definitely better,” Oats said. “I think the league has gotten better and better since I've gotten into the league. It'll be year six now, which I can't believe it's been that long, but there's no easy games, particularly road games in the SEC, and that's part of the reason I try to schedule so tough in the non-conference, to get us ready for SEC play.
“And I think we've done that again this year with our non-conference schedule as best we can. There's nothing like going into a place like Auburn. You're not going to replicate that. We are on the road at Purdue, which is going to be a tough place to play. But going into Auburn or Arkansas or Kentucky, Tennessee, there's some really tough road venues with some very good coaches and really good teams in this league.
Bama’s men’s basketball team finds itself ranked higher nationally than the school’s football team. It isn’t the first time but Oats isn’t interested in comparisons.
“The level of the football program has been at that level at an extremely long time,” he said. “It is ridiculous. The number of times it has been No. 1… we are just getting to the level of winning one national championship. We could win one but we would be 18 more to match that.”
Auburn was picked second in the preseason poll, giving the state of Alabama the top two spots in the poll for the first time.
“We have enjoyed living in the shadows of some of the great football programs that we've had over the years, but rather than focusing on that, we've embraced that and recognizing that if we can do it in football and if we can do it in baseball and golf and women's sports -- we are an everything conference. It just means more,” he said.
“The second best conference in America isn't even close to the SEC in all sports. Men's basketball wasn't there on a consistent basis. So I'm proud of both Auburn and Alabama for representing the state of Alabama and playing quality basketball, and we hope that as we start this season, we can live up to those expectations.”
There are three “new” coaches in the league this season. One is John Calipari, who moves from Kentucky to Arkansas.
“The biggest thing for this team, which I hope that we put this roster together to be a better defensive group, they're more physical, they're older,” Calipari said. “What I found out when you try to have seven, eight freshmen and you're going against an older team of 24-year-olds, 23-year-olds, that's a big difference, and especially in big games where they are more mature enough to play through than with young guys.
“But we still have young guys. We've got three freshmen who are going to be really good, but they've got the veterans around them. Some transferred, some transferred in, or transferred with us, I should say. That's D.J., Aidoo and Zvonimir, who's doing some good stuff. Zvonimir, we're trying to play through him and do stuff.”
Alabama’s Mark Sears was the choice of the media for SEC Men’s Basketball Player of the Year. Auburn’s Johni Broome, Georgia’s Asa Newell, Tennessee’s Zakai Zeigler, and Texas A&M’s Wade Taylor IV also received votes in the Player of the Year voting.
The league includes newcomers Texas and Oklahoma. The Sooners were picked next to last by the media but having nine new players may have something to do with that.
“I think that having this many newcomers, unfortunately, has been the new reality of what's going on. I've been such a coach with development, retention, I'm a big believer in your newcomers come in and they see how the older guys do things. At Loyola I was such a big believer. Retention has been hard with the transfer portal and NIL combined,” OU coach Porter Moser said.
“The one thing I will say is two of our toughest players that we had on last year's 20-win season was Sam Godwin and Jalon Moore. Those were two starters that had been through a lot. So we added these newcomers. And the one thing that those newcomers -- we got a lot of different blends -- can say every day is two of our hardest practicing guys every single day are Jalon Moore and Sam Godwin. That's the standard of how hard they're going. I think those two guys really bring in some toughness, some athleticism.”
Sears, Broome, Zeigler, and Taylor were each All-SEC First Team selections along with Florida’s Walter Clayton Jr. Alabama’s Grant Nelson, Arkansas’ Jonas Aidoo, Arkansas’ Johnell Davis, Ole Miss’ Matthew Murrell, and Mississippi State’s Josh Hubbard were second team picks. Auburn’s Chad Baker-Mazara, Florida’s Alex Condon, Kentucky’s Jaxson Robinson, South Carolina’s Collin Murray-Boyles and Texas’ Tramon Mark were selected to the third team.
The new season opens Monday, Nov. 4, with conference play set to begin Saturday, Jan. 4.
The 2025 SEC Tournament will be March 12-16 at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tenn.
First Team All-SEC
Mark Sears – Alabama
Johni Broome – Auburn
Walter Clayton Jr. – Florida
Zakai Zeigler – Tennessee
Wade Taylor IV – Texas A&M
Second Team All-SEC
Grant Nelson – Alabama
Jonas Aidoo – Arkansas
Johnell Davis – Arkansas
Matthew Murrell – Ole Miss
Josh Hubbard – Mississippi State
Third Team All-SEC
Chad Baker-Mazara – Auburn
Alex Condon – Florida
Jaxson Robinson – Kentucky
Collin Murray-Boyles – South Carolina
Tramon Mark – Texas
SEC Player of the Year
Mark Sears – Alabama
Predicted Order Of Finish
1. Alabama
2. Auburn
3. Tennessee
4. Arkansas
5. Texas A&M
6. Florida
7. Texas
8. Kentucky
9. Ole Miss
10. Mississippi State
11. South Carolina
12. Georgia
13. Missouri
14. LSU
15. Oklahoma
16. Vanderbilt