Mark Sears is back in familiar territory.
The Alabama graduate student guard returns to Ohio after starting his career at Ohio University.
Sears has since become one of college basketball’s best players for the East Region’s No. 2-seeded Crimson Tide, as they open up NCAA Tournament play against No. 15 Robert Morris on March 21 in Cleveland.
“When I was at Ohio, I spent a lot of time developing, and they did a great job helping me be the player I am today,” Sears said. “I have some experience coming to Cleveland because we’ve been the past two times. One of those times, we had won it all here and the other time, we fell short. OU, I love it. That’s a part of me.”
Sears played two seasons at Ohio and was a part of the Bobcats’ Mid-American Conference Tournament championship team in 2021 as a freshman. They won the MAC title on the same floor that Alabama will be playing on this weekend.
Ohio earned the No. 13 seed in the Midwest Region and pulled a first-round upset over No. 4 Virginia. Sears played 17 minutes and scored four points in that game.
The following year as a sophomore, Sears and the Bobcats fell in a MAC Tournament semifinal to Kent State.
“Still having that chip on their shoulder to want to get back,” Sears said. “At the mid-major level, you have to win the tournament to go to the championship, and at the high-major level, you’ve still got to win games to get a good seeding. When you get in that tournament, you just want to have that competitiveness to make it farther than you did last year.”
Sears made a big jump his sophomore year at Ohio from 8.5 points per game to 19.6. With MAC ties himself coming from the University at Buffalo, Alabama coach Nate Oats took notice.
“What he did at Ohio, particularly in his second year, was pretty remarkable,” Oats said. “When I got to Alabama, we kind of had our first few practices, me and the assistants that came from Buffalo with me to Alabama. We had quite a few kids at Buffalo that could have played here, really helped us. Kind of looked at what Mark was able to do in that league. That’s a really good league.”
“Mark is 4-1 here in Cleveland, so he’s got an 80% winning percentage here. It’s pretty good. I thought I was good, where I’m 9-1, but he’s right there with me. So between the two of us, we’ve won a few games down here in the arena we’re going to play in.”
Sears transferred to Alabama for his junior season in 2022-23 and has thrived. He is now a two-time Southeastern Conference first-teamer and a two-time consensus All-American. He was also the catalyst for the Tide’s Final Four run a year ago.
As Sears tries to make one last run in his college career, it’s fitting that Cleveland is a pit stop along the way.
“We’ve got a great group of guys,” Sears said. “Everybody, they work really hard, and we play for each other. When we’re doing that, we’re very special.”
