SEC Basketball: 2024 offseason grades for each team
By Justin Wiles
The offseason for college basketball is rarely boring with every team in the country making multiple roster changes. This year, the makeup of the SEC will look vastly different. Not only because the conference is bringing Oklahoma and Texas into the fold, but also because of the large amount of roster turnover every team experienced this offseason.
Here are offseason grades for each SEC team, based on what has happened since the end of the season.
Alabama Crimson Tide - Grade: A
Coming off an impressive 2023 season, making it to the Final Four and losing to eventual champion UConn, there wasn’t much for the Tide to do this offseason. Alabama had two major areas of concern a few months ago, both of which were addressed.
The first was the tall task of convincing Mark Sears to return for another season instead of making the jump to the NBA. Sears was the driving force behind Nate Oats’ high-powered offense the past couple of seasons. Having him back for another season solidified that Alabama will once again be one of the top offenses in the country. And Grant Nelson's return only helped matters.
The second area was the defense. If Alabama expected to compete with the blue bloods of college basketball continually, it needed to have some semblance of a defense, last year Alabama gave up over 81 points per game. To solve this issue Nate Oats landed arguably the best defender in the transfer portal. In signing Clifford Omoruyi the Tide instantly improved its defense. Last season at Rutgers, Omoruyi averaged 8.3 rebounds and 2.9 blocks per game, both of which would have easily led Alabama.
The Tide did lose a couple of bigger pieces this offseason to the transfer portal and to eligibility, but Alabama was able to land a couple of solid scorers from the portal in Chris Youngblood and Houston Mallette. Youngblood averaged 15.3 points last year at South Florida and Mallette averaged 14.7 points at Pepperdine.
Coach Oats and Alabama made smart moves this offseason, addressing areas in obvious need of improvement. This team was already sitting in a good spot this offseason, and, especially, with the addition of a true defender should be even better moving forward.