Alabama shatters NCAA Tournament record with scorching Sweet 16 performance

Very few teams in the country are willing to run with Nate Oats’ Alabama Crimson Tide, the fastest-paced team in the country this season, but the BYU Cougars are one of them. BYU head coach Kevin Young didn’t look for his team to slow down their Sweet 16 matchup with the No. 2 seed in the East Region, instead, he dared them to run with the Crimson Tide, and in hindsight, that may have been a mistake. 

Alabama set an NCAA Tournament record with 25 made threes, three more than Loyola Marymount’s previous record of 22. Nate Oats’s team steamrolled its way to a 113-88 win to advance to its second-straight Elite Eight. 

The Crimson Tide started hot and never cooled off, taking advantage of an up-tempo game and overly passive perimeter defense from BYU, ducking under screens with the ball in the hands of First-Team All-American Mark Sears. Sears spearheaded the three-point bombardment with 10 made three-pointers, tying the second most in March Madness history and falling just one shy of Loyola Marymount’s Jeff Fryer who made 11 in 1990.

Alabama’s 25 made three-pointers weren’t the only NCAA Tournament record the team set on Thursday night at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey. The team also attempted a record 51 threes, knocking down 49% of those. 51 of the Tide’s 66 field goal attempts were from beyond the arc. 

Only eight teams attempted more three-pointers per game than Alabama’s 29.2 this season, and few players shot more than 6.9 per game. 

Sears was dominant in Alabma’s Final Four run last season, and despite earning First-Team All-American honors for his regular season, his shooting severely regressed. Sears shot 43.6% from three in the 2023-24 season, which dropped to 32.9% in his fifth-year senior season. The star guard finished with a game-high 34 points on 61.1% shooting from the field and 62.5% shooting from three. He came into the Sweet 16 just 1/9 from beyond the arc in the NCAA Tournament.