Alabama basketball’s Mark Sears makes SEC history with win over No. 1 Auburn

[ad_1]

As Nate Oats and Mark Sears have built the Alabama men’s basketball program into one of the nation’s top programs, the All-American guard has etched his name into numerous records in the record book.

The graduate student guard added to that lengthy list of accolades on Saturday.

With No. 8 Alabama’s win over No. 1 Auburn, Sears became the first player in SEC history to defeat three separate Associated Press No. 1 ranked opponents in his career, according to the SEC Network on X (formerly Twitter).

To view this content, you’ll need to update your privacy settings. Please click here and view the “Content and social-media partners” setting to do so.

Mark Sears becomes the first player in SEC history to win three games over AP No. 1 opponents 😤

🐘 Beat No. 1 UNC on 11/27/2022
🐘 Beat No. 1 Houston on 12/10/2022
🐘 Beat No. 1 Auburn on 3/8/2025 pic.twitter.com/YCTRuequ8k

— SEC Network (@SECNetwork) March 8, 2025

REQUIRED READING: Mark Sears lifts Alabama past top-ranked Auburn basketball with OT buzzer-beater

Sears’ first win against an AP No. 1 team came during his first season at Alabama in 2022-23, when the Ohio transfer led the Crimson Tide to a 103-101 win over No. 1 UNC in the Phil Knight Invitational with a team-high 24 points. Two weeks later, Sears and Alabama defeated No. 1 Houston on the road at the Fertitta Center in Houston.

The 6-foot-1 guard delivered one of the biggest shots of his career at Alabama yet on Saturday, when he beat the buzzer with a leaping jumper inside the paint to beat No. 1 Auburn in overtime. It was just his third successfully made shot from the field for Sears on the afternoon, as he finished 3 of 9 shooting (1 of 4 from 3-point range).

“In my mind I was saying, ‘This is going to be a game winner,'” Sears told ESPN’s Molly McGrath after the game. “Coach drew up an amazing play for us to make a play.”

REQUIRED READING: Can Alabama get No. 1 seed in March Madness? What win over Auburn means for Crimson Tide

Added Alabama coach Nate Oats in…

[ad_2]
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/article/alabama-basketballs-mark-sears-makes-020105678.html

Author : The Tuscaloosa News

Publish date : 2025-03-09 02:01:00

Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.