Sears and the Tide set an NCAA tournament record for three-pointers in their win over BYU. / Robert Deutsch-Imagn Images
Once it started, the barrage would not stop. It could not stop.
It did not stop.
It took Mark Sears and the Alabama Crimson Tide three minutes and 13 seconds to make their first three-pointer of the night. Such a drought, an eternity when held up to the ensuing half hour or so of basketball, was an anomaly on a night full of anomalies.
Their shooting tour de force was relentless and overwhelming to the point where it became historic. The Crimson Tide set an NCAA tournament record for three-pointers made (25) and attempted (51) in an 113–88 victory over the BYU Cougars on Thursday night in the Sweet 16 at the East Regional.
“That was a fun game if you like offense,” Tide coach Nate Oats said, returning to his roots as a high school math teacher. “I’ve got to teach these guys some math. I told Sears there’s a thing called regression to the mean. His last six games he was shooting 14%, 5-of-35. He’s not a 14% shooter, obviously. [BYU] had been going under ball screens just about every game we watched. I told both those guys [Aden Holloway] and Sears, man, I hope they go under us because we’re going to rain them.”
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Rain they did.
Out in the corner with ease. Unguarded from the wing. Straight away with a hand in their face. For good measure, just inside the midcourt logo at the Prudential Center, too.
It simply did not matter where on the court a Tide player wanted to launch, chances were high—really high—that it was going in.
“Once that first three went in, I felt like the basket was as big as the ocean every time I shot,” said Sears, who finished with a game-high 34 points and eight assists. “Every time I shot, I felt like it was going in. Just lost myself in the game and just let everything else happen.”
He wasn’t wrong. The basket may have been regulation size in reality, but was certainly kinder than normal. Alabama was a remarkable 57 points better than the Cougars from beyond the arc, more than negating what one of the Big 12’s best offenses was doing on the inside (a 34-point advantage in points in the paint).
Sears, in particular, was a walking inferno. The veteran point guard looked nothing like his forgettable SEC tournament run.
Against BYU, he made just a single two-point field goal, but went 10-of-16 from three, coming within a whisker of Loyola Marymount Lions star Jeff Fryer’s tournament record of 11.
“Even when I was shooting 14%, my confidence was still high. I never stopped doubting myself and stopped believing in myself,” Sears said. “My teammates kept encouraging me to keep shooting it, keep shooting it, keep shooting it. That just shows trust in them that, even though when I’m not at my highest peak, they still trust me and want me to shoot the ball.”
Such confidence was evident throughout the game, which stayed close until midway through the second half when the barrage started hunting down history in rapid fashion.
Sears’s ninth from beyond the arc with 7:41 to play set a program record for individual threes in the Big Dance and broke LMU’s record for most made three-pointers in a game. The 35-year-old mark seemed like historic lore ever since the Lions beat the Michigan Wolverines, 149–115, in a memorable 1990 affair.
“That was my freshman year in high school that year,” Oats said. “I remember Bo Kimble shooting left-hand free throws in honor of Hank [Gathers]. I loved watching them play. They got up and down. Maybe part of the reason we coach the way we coach. It’s a little more fun that way.”
Alabama is into the Elite Eight in consecutive seasons, and it would be only a mild upset for Oats’s team to make back-to-back Final Four appearances.
Not bad for a football school that has become a poster child for its league’s surge on the hard court, with the second-most points ever scored in the Sweet 16 adding another footnote to the SEC’s success this March.
Oats has led the Tide to the Elite Eight for the second straight season. / Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images
“Credit goes to Nate Oats, their staff and their players, historic shooting performance. That was hard to overcome for us,” BYU coach Kevin Young said. “We felt like we made a little dent and started going the other way and they just kept it going. I’m not the type of person that just says, ‘Oh, they shot it unbelievable, nothing we could do.’ Disappointed in myself and our staff that we couldn’t put our players in a better position to find answers, but they made the plays and we didn’t.”
Young faulting himself for trying to play at Alabama’s pace is a risky proposition on a regular night, much less when the Crimson Tide are playing to peak efficiency.
Evolution in college basketball can sometimes be slow. Painful, even. Other times, it can be rapid, where you marvel at the change from season to season.
In 2008, Stephen Curry ushered in a new era of three-point shooting with the Davidson Wildcats in a memorable NCAA tournament run. Later, he perfected the art of the three with the Golden State Warriors’ dynasty.
Recently, the rise of analytics dictated a pursuit of efficiency that sent the midrange jumper packing and almost necessitated taking either a shot at the basket or one for three points, with everything else being somewhat sacrilegious. Add in a bit of pace up and down the court, and perhaps it’s no wonder we arrived at the historic effort that unfolded Thursday.
“An open three is kind of like a layup,” said Holloway, who was 6-of-13 from deep. “So we’re happy with 77% of our shots coming from three today.”
It’s hard to fathom that kind of statement, with truthful conviction, being made just a few years ago, but the Crimson Tide believe it to their core.
“We weren’t getting to [Troy’s all-time record] 28 tonight, but 25 ain’t bad,” Oats joked. “I don’t know that we’re going to repeat 51 threes attempted, but we’re going to have the guys ready to play the right way.”
If it results in more history-making performances though, why not?
Because once the threes start falling, with a team like the Tide, they tend to keep dropping just as they did amid the sweetest of Sweet 16 victories.
Published 3 Hours Ago|Modified 12:49 AM EDT
