Sears Secures Alabama's Season Sweep over Kentucky

The Crimson Tide's fifth-year senior's second straight 30-point performance helped Alabama beat the Wildcats for the second time this season and end the team's two-game losing streak.

Mark Sears encourages the crowd against Kentucky- Feb. 22, 2025 / Alabama Athletics

TUSCALOOSA, Ala.— Students on the front row of the Alabama student section in Coleman Coliseum were wearing shirts with "Blue Blood" crossed out and covered up with the phrase "New Blood," and the No. 4Crimson Tide continued to prove it is the new blood of the SEC under Nate Oats, completing the regular season sweep over No. 17 Kentucky with a 96-83 win in Coleman Coliseum on Saturday.

Mark Sears stayed hot with 30 points, and Alabama got another 19 from Aden Holloway, who made five 3-pointers in the win. Center Clifford Omoruyi was dominate on the boards with a season high 15 rebounds and his first double-double in an Alabama uniform.

"Sears is playing the best basketball I've seen him play since he's been here, on both sides of the ball," Oats said after the game.

Sears nailed a 3-pointer in transition to give Alabama a 91-79 lead with two minutes to go, and the Tide's fifth-year senior blew a kiss to the soldout Coleman Crowd that he will only get to play in front of two more times.

MS1 pic.twitter.com/lhnSMejo8L

— Alabama Men’s Basketball (@AlabamaMBB) February 23, 2025

Alabama scored the first basket of the game after not holding a lead at all in its previous two games, but it was once again a slow start for the Crimson Tide with Kentucky jumping out to a 12-point lead midway through the first half and had 20 points in the first five minutes. Oats wasn't messing around about the slow starts though. If a guy didn't make a play on defense, he got pulled almost immediately. Oats made five substitutions before the first media timeout.

"I basically said there's going to be zero tolerance for effort, scouting report screw-ups–– that's a bigger thing," Oats said. "We put the scouting report in, it needs to be followed. It needed to be locked in and focused on the right things. And then just dumb turnovers. we've got to stop turning the ball over."

Unlike the last two games, Alabama was able to close out the first half well. The Tide locked in defensively and ramped up the effort on both ends of the floor.

"The defense from that point on was where we needed it to be," Oats said.

After trailing 30-18, the Tide outscored Kentucky 29-10 over the final 9:37 of the first half to take a 47-40 lead into the break. The second half was closely contested with the Wildcats cutting the deficit down to as little as three multiple times and kept it within six to eight points for most of the half.

A 3-pointer from Chris Youngblood with 7:32 to go gave Alabama a 75-66 lead in the middle of an 8-0 run that provided the Crimson Tide some breathing room over the final few minutes of the game.

Alabama has struggled at times this season containing the other team's best player. Kentucky's leading scorer on the season, Otega Oweh, finished with just two points and fouled out with 6:49 to go. It was the first time this season he hasn't scored in double figures. Koby Brea lead the Wildcats (18-9, 7-7 SEC) in scoring with 20 points on four made 3s. He had 11 early points and couldn't miss from beyond the arc, and Alabama did a good job limiting him the rest of the game.

It was a needed, bounce-back win for the Crimson Tide to make sure the two-game slide didn't turn into an end-of-season spiral. Alabama improves to 22-5 (11-3 SEC) to remain in the hunt for an SEC regular season title with four games to go.

"We don't like losing," Sears said. "We lost two games in a row, and that's unacceptable. Just went out there with the mindest of, 'We can't afford another loss.'"

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