By DAN GELSTON AP Sports Writer
NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — Mark Sears shot a free throw late in the second half that could have cut Alabama’s deficit to 10 — a last-gasp effort at a comeback still within reach — and watched the ball clang off the back rim.
Even the supposed gimmes weren’t automatic for Sears on this night.
The star guard equated the hoop to the size of an ocean in his mind after sinking 10 3-pointers in the Sweet 16. But against Duke, with a Final Four berth at stake, that rim for Sears shrunk to the size of a teardrop.
Duke handcuffed Alabama’s All-American and did a pretty good job stifling the rest of the high-scoring Crimson Tide, too.
Sears was held to six points and Alabama followed an NCAA Tournament -record 25 3-pointers with only eight, dooming its shot at a second straight Final Four with an 85-65 loss in the East Region final Saturday.
“It’s tough within 48 hours from playing as well as we did to playing as poorly as we did,” coach Nate Oats said.
Sears — who finished 2 of 12 from the field and 1 for 5 on 3s — shot a clunker on Alabama’s first attempt of the game and never got untracked. He hit 10 3s and scored 34 points on the same Prudential Center court only two nights earlier against BYU. This time, Sears made his only basket of the first half with 2:17 to go, pulling Alabama within eight.
Cooper Flagg and Duke looked largely unflappable — and unstoppable during a late 13-0 run that clinched the win — en route to an 18th Final Four.
The Blue Devils gave Sears nowhere to go and left him scrambling for open looks. Labaron Philon hit a trio of 3s and scored 16 points for Alabama (28-9), but the highest-scoring team in the nation was nearly held to a season low for points. Coming off a 113-point outburst in the Sweet 16, not a single Alabama player made more shots than he missed.
“They did a good job of taking away our 3-ball and that’s something that we do really well at a high level,” Sears said.
Sears fell well shy of his season average of 19 points, and his first 3 didn’t come until there was 16:19 remaining.
Sears, a first-team All-America guard, was in a long-range slump before his BYU breakout. He went just 1 of 9 over the first weekend of the tournament and was only 3 for 25 over his previous five games before he made 10 of 16 from deep Thursday against the Cougars.
That spectacular night seemed more an aberration than a sign of success to come.
“They were just building out,” Sears said. “When we would drive, they would build out, and they had a great rim protector at the rim making it hard on us, and they just did a really good job of doing that.”
Under Oats, the former math teacher who turned a humdrum program into one of the nation’s elite, Alabama reached its first Final Four last season before losing to eventual national champion UConn. Elimination came a round earlier this year — and denied the dominant SEC a shot at placing four teams in the Final Four.
Alabama failed to crack 70 points for only the second time all season. The Crimson Tide set March Madness records by making 25 3-pointers against BYU, attempting 51 and knocking one of college basketball’s most memorable teams, Loyola Marymount, off a perch it had held for 35 years.
They made only five in the first half against Duke and the long ball never fell their way. Alabama shot 8 for 32 from behind the arc and 35.4% overall from the floor.
Alabama also got beat on the boards 41-30 and committed 11 turnovers.
For a program that once considered even making it to the second round a successful season, the expectations in Tuscaloosa have soared to the point where a deep March run is the standard.
Oats has since won SEC titles in 2021 and 2023 and two more conference tournament titles, led Alabama to the No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament, boasts an active streak of three straight Sweet 16s and hit No. 1 in the AP poll.
“With the standard of excellence we’ve set across all of college basketball, we’ve established ourselves as one of the best programs in the country. Are we disappointed tonight? For sure we are, but we’ve put ourselves up there with everybody else,” Oats said. “And we’re going to continue to do that year in and year out and keep knocking on the door, keep pounding the stone, if you will, and be one of the teams competing for a Final Four and a national championship and conference championships in the best conference in college basketball every year, and we’ll get back to the Final Four and win one here soon.”