Tide Basketball Land Big 12 Degree Transfer

On a weekend reserved for football at the University of Alabama, Crimson Tide's new men's basketball coach, Nate Oats, is making noise on the recruiting track.

Point guard James Bolden, a transfer and graduate from West Virginia, an official visitor to UA basketball this weekend, pledged to play his final season of eligibility with Alabama, according to his Twitter account. Nicknamed "Beetle", Bolden brings more scoring skill to Tide's roster that will see several new faces on the court this fall, but also welcomes several, with Kira Lewis and John Petty removing their names from the transfer portal. Playing in 18 games (12 starts) before the injury last season, Bolden averaged 12.2 points and 2.6 rebounds per game. In his career with the Mountaineers, Bolden shot 43.4% from the field and 40.3% from the three-point range.

As a product of Covington (Kentucky), Holmes Junior Senior, Bolden was qualified as the No. 46 base and the No. 240 overall player in the 2015 class, according to the 247Sports Composite Rankings generated by the industry. Upon leaving high school, Bolden chose West Virginia over Butler, Purdue, Xavier and Ohio.

The men's basketball team of Alabama Crimson Tide represents the University of Alabama in men's basketball in Division I of the NCAA. The program plays at the Southeastern Conference (SEC). At the conference, he is only in the power of Kentucky long-time basketball in basketball wins and SEC tournament titles and is third behind Kentucky and LSU in SEC regular season conference titles. Alabama was retroactively recognized as the National Pre-NCAA Tournament Champion for the 1929-30 seasons by the Premo-Porretta Power Survey.

The men's basketball program has spent most of its history in the shadow of the Alabama soccer team but has grown in stature in recent decades. Under former coach Mark Gottfried, the team achieved a No. 1 national ranking briefly in 2003 and competed for an NCAA Regional Tournament Championship in 2004. The program was notable as a regular basketball competitor in the 1980s and early the 90s under the direction of Coach Wimp Sanderson and in the 1970s under Coach CM Newton. Alabama has eight appearances in the NCAA Sweet 16 Tournament. In the 2003-04 seasons, the team defeated Stanford, the # 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament, and reached the Elite Eight round, where it lost to the eventual national champion, Connecticut.

By: Preeti Narula

Content: https://247sports.com/college/alabama/Article/Alabama-Basketball-Recruiting-Nate-Oats-lands-Big-12-grand-transfer-James-Bolden--131187675/