High Tide never arrived against Duke, but Alabama hoops is here to stay

There was a moment when it still seemed possible, when Duke looked almost beatable, when Alabama's second straight Final Four and an inaugural national championship were not out of the question.

A flying Cooper Flagg tried to dunk on Grant Nelson, and the veteran stoned the freshman at the apex. While Flagg picked himself and his well-earned reputation off the floor, the Crimson Tide rushed toward a new horizon.

The ball found Mark Sears in the corner, and for the first time on a frustrating evening, his shot from the arc found the bottom of the net. It felt like the first wave in another patented Alabama surge. The Duke lead was down to seven, and there were more than 16 minutes on the clock.

Two days earlier, Alabama had dropped a trey every minute and a half in a record-setting Sweet 16 tsunami, but the disparity between BYU and Duke was as vast as the Blue Devils are long, athletic and skilled. High Tide never arrived. 

Duke never went cold enough long enough even with Flagg missing eight of nine shots in one stretch. Alabama never got close to hot. The margin never dipped below six from there and then only for 13 seconds.

Visions of an epic comeback proved to be a fleeting illusion. The greatest three-year stretch in Alabama basketball history ended with a whimper in an 85-65 Elite Eight defeat. Losing your last game to a better team, even if it's the best team in the country, doesn't make losing go down any smoother.

The bigger picture is brighter but still incomplete. An Alabama season that started with a No. 2 AP ranking and earned a No. 2 NCAA Tournament seed will not end with the program's first national title. A season that included 28 wins, one of them at Auburn on Senior Day in the Jungle, never got to that place where the Tide got to cut down a net.

There's disappointment in that conclusion for a number of reasons. This Alabama team accomplished much but seemed capable of more. Beating Kentucky three times in the same season for the first time was offset by going 1-4 against the other SEC teams that reached the Elite Eight.

Playing in the first 1 vs. 2 game in SEC history against Auburn was dampened by losing that game in Coleman Coliseum with College GameDay in the house. Contributing three victories to the SEC's record of 20 in the NCAA Tournament was soured by becoming the first member of the league's Big Four to exit the bracket.

It all feels vaguely unsatisfying because Nate Oats has raised the standard in Tuscaloosa to an all-time high for men's basketball. Since 2022, Alabama has won more games (84), more SEC regular-season games (42) and more NCAA Tournament games (9) than in any three-year period in program history.

For the first time, Alabama won at least 25 games for three straight seasons; earned top-four NCAA seeds for three straight years; reached back-to-back Elite Eights; and advanced to the Final Four. It's just the second time the Tide has played in three consecutive Sweet 16s.

History will treat this unprecedented period with great respect, as it deserves. In the short term, recency bias will ask a question and leave a hole in a lot of crimson hearts.

What if?

What if injuries hadn't robbed the rotation of key pieces for different periods and shelved shotmaker and leader Latrell Wrightsell Jr. for the entire campaign? What if Alabama hadn't failed to show up at home against Ole Miss and hadn't failed to finish at Tennessee? What if the Tide had shared the SEC regular-season title with Auburn at 15-3 and earned a No. 1 seed in the Big Dance?

What if they hadn't had to meet Duke until the Final Four? Or at all?

It's all over but the second-guessing now. What if hurts and will linger for a while, but what was deserves to be remembered forever. Sears and Nelson are gone, but their legacy is as permanent as footprints in Denny Chimes cement. This team didn't win a championship, but this is now a championship program.

High Tide never came Saturday.

Roll Tide will return.