Grab your brooms and your history books. Alabama men’s basketball made a statement Friday.
The Crimson Tide walked into Bridgestone Arena and turned the annual Kentucky family get-together into the worst beatdown of the Wildcats in SEC Tournament history. No. 3 seed Alabama defeated No. 6 seed Kentucky 99-70 in the quarterfinals to complete the season sweep. The 29-point loss far exceeds the previous high: A 17-point loss to Florida for Kentucky in 2005.
Blue blood, meet new blood.
“It shows we’re that,” freshman Aiden Sherrell said. “We’re the real deal. We don’t put in all that work for nothing. Coach (Nate) Oats doesn’t recruit us like this for nothing.”
Alabama still has a long ways to go to put itself on the level of Kentucky historically. The Crimson Tide needs to start winning national championships to do that.
But this season’s achievement − three wins against a good Kentucky team − is nothing at which to scoff. It’s the latest feather in the cap of a program building toward perennial national relevancy.
“We’ve kind of established ourselves as a top 10 program in the country over these last four or five years,” Oats said. “Kentucky is good. We’re also good. It’s going to happen. I mean, hopefully there’s some other teams we can rattle off some winning streaks against.”
Alabama will have bigger challenges this postseason. That starts Saturday (2:30 p.m. CT, ESPN) against No. 2 seed Florida in the semifinals. The Gators might be the best team in the country, and the Crimson Tide had all sorts of troubles against Florida at home not even two weeks ago.
But for a few hours prior to Saturday, the Crimson Tide has the opportunity to celebrate the fact it beat Kentucky three times in one season.
“It just shows our resiliency and how good we are,” guard Chris Youngblood said. “It’s hard to beat a team three times in a row.”
That’s especially the case when two out of the three crowds slanted hard toward Kentucky: both at Rupp Arena and Bridgestone Arena.
“You think of Kentucky, you think of a big blue blood,” guard Mark Sears said. “The top brand in college basketball. For us to be able to do that, it shows a lot about the University of Alabama.”
Nick Kelly is an Alabama beat writer for AL.com and the Alabama Media Group. Follow him on X and Instagram.
