Grant Nelson Available to Face Robert Morris in NCAA Tournament

The Alabama forward suffered a knee injury late in the first half against Florida and saw a specialist earlier this week.

Mar 15, 2025; Nashville, TN, USA; Alabama Crimson Tide forward Grant Nelson (4) lays the ball in over Florida Gators forward Alex Condon (21) during the first half at Bridgestone Arena. Mandatory Credit: Steve Roberts-Imagn Images / Steve Roberts-Imagn Images

CLEVELAND ––– Alabama men's basketball forward Grant Nelson will be available for Friday's NCAA Tournament game against 15-seed Robert Morris, per CBS Sports' Jon Rothstein. However, he will not start.

“We’re going to see how he feels after warmups,” Oats said in Rothstein's post on X.

Nelson suffered a knee injury in the SEC Tournament semifinal loss to Florida. He was initially questionable to face Robert Morris earlier this week, but was upgraded to a game-time decision on Thursday.

"Our trainers are saying he's day-to-day," Oats said during Thursday's press conference. "Just yesterday, he started doing basketball, still workouts. He did not go in our live play and practice today. Grant wants to play. He's a competitor. He played great in the NCAA Tournament last year. It'll end up being a game time decision based on what he feels like in the morning, but if he does end up playing, he won't have practiced anything live up until then.

"I think it's looking a little better, obviously, for Sunday than maybe Friday, but there's a chance he could play. They're going to wait to make a decision and see what it looks like tomorrow morning."

Oats said shortly after the bracket reveal last Sunday that "We're hoping to get Grant back by the first round" and will have further details after seeing a knee specialist. They saw the specialist on Monday.

“Not sure he’ll be ready by Friday," Oats said during Hey Coach earlier in the week. "We’re hoping at a minimum that he’d be ready by Sunday with the possibility of maybe Friday. I though he played pretty well. We dodged one, it wasn’t anything too serious with his knee but he will for sure be questionable for Friday."

Nelson was off to a very solid start against Florida as he had nine points on 4 of 7 from the field to go along with three rebounds, an assist, a block and a steal in just 10 minutes.

When the Crimson Tide came out of the halftime break, Nelson was not seen warming up nor was he on the bench to open the second half. Nevertheless, he returned to the bench about a minute into the period, but was still hobbling a bit and was wearing the Alabama shorts with the warmup shirt on. That said, Nelson would never take the warmup shirt off.

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