In the history of Alabama basketball, it was the women at the forefront of postseason success. Before the Alabama men made the Final Four, the women’s team did it three decades earlier.
Alabama men’s basketball had made NCAA Tournament runs before, but it wasn’t until last season that the men’s team earned the right to hang a Final Four banner at Coleman Coliseum. Even before Mark Gottfried’s team reached the men’s Elite Eight in 2004, coach Rick Moody’s 1993-94 women’s team did it 20 years earlier, and wasn’t done.
Neisa Johnson, Yolanda Watkins, Betsy Harris and Madonna Thompson were mainstays on that Final Four roster. Alabama defeated Oregon State, Iowa, Texas Tech and Penn State in the NCAA Tournament before falling to Louisiana Tech in Richmond, Virginia.
Moody’s women’s squads earned eight consecutive March Madness bids starting in 1992. Then came a 22-season NCAA Tournament drought before current coach Kristy Curry returned the Alabama women’s basketball program to the big dance.
Return to prominence for Alabama women’s basketball
Fresh off of seven years at Texas Tech, Curry was hired by Alabama in 2013.
Eight building seasons later, Curry got the Crimson Tide back to the NCAA postseason with the program’s ninth second-round appearance. With the roster additions of Sarah Ashlee Barker and Aaliyah Nye, Alabama found its way back to the NCAA Tournament the past two years, giving the Crimson Tide three March Madness appearances in the last four seasons.
As coach Nate Oats, Mark Sears and company navigated an unlikely journey to the national semifinal against UConn last year, Curry and her crew went 24-10 go to the second round of March Madness. This year’s team has been a regular in the top 25, while the men have rated consistently in the top 10.
Former Alabama assistant coach Antoine Pettway, now head coach at Kennesaw State, who played on the Elite Eight team in 2004, said the winning tradition is “contagious” the moment “you step on campus in Tuscaloosa.”
“Look what Kristy Curry’s doing in women’s basketball,” Pettway said. “Everybody’s winning over there, man.”
Curry has also coached a team to the Final Four, taking Purdue to a second-place finish in 2001.
ESPN basketball analyst Debbie Antonelli calls Curry “really good at what she does” and expressed the hope that fans will appreciate her success.
“The opportunity to go to Alabama was a really good opportunity because of the resources around athletics, the incredible, passionate fan base and the opportunity to compete in the SEC,” Antonelli said.
Antonelli credits Alabama’s men’s and women’s coaches for keeping both programs nationally relevant.
“It has a lot to do with the quality of the leadership. Nate Oats and Kristy Curry are both winning people with incredible character,” Antonelli said. “She’s had success at a lot of places. She knows what it looks like.”
Emilee Smarr covers Alabama basketball and Crimson Tide athletics for the Tuscaloosa News. She can be reached via email at esmarr@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Alabama women’s basketball tasted Final Four success before the men
