‘Ready to come home?’: To get Alabama basketball's attention Mark Sears had to leave state

Mark Sears was lying on the bed in his Athens, Ohio, dorm room when he got the call.

“You ready to come home?” he was asked.

On the phone was Alabama assistant basketball coach Antoine Pettway, the first coach to reach out after Sears' announcement that he would enter the transfer portal from Ohio University.

More than ready. Sears had been waiting years to be asked that question.

He didn't receive these kinds of calls coming out of high school. Now, Sears' growth, patience and hard work would earn him offers from 27 schools, including Texas and Gonzaga.

But one of the most coveted transfer additions in the spring of 2022 was from Muscle Shoals. And he chose the home-state Crimson Tide.

The decision was a good one. Sears has become a top player on the nation’s top-ranked team.

“I had the mentality that I wanted to prove people wrong,” Sears told The Tuscaloosa News. “That’s really how I looked at it. I just knew if I put my head down and kept working, good things were going to come.”

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Sears remembers getting up at 7 a.m. on Jan. 17, 2015. Then a seventh-grader, he couldn’t wait for the Alabama-Kentucky game that night.

A friend had a ticket for him. It was in the nosebleeds at Coleman Coliseum, but Sears didn’t care. He was about to see his first Alabama game.

The arena was packed, and Sears was hooked.

“Just ever since that day, I knew this was going to be one of the dream schools I was going to come to,” Sears said.

Early in high school, his mother, Lameka, passed along a Bible verse, Habakkuk 2:2 – “And the Lord answered me, and said, write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it.”

Sears took that to heart. He wrote his dream on a piece of yellow paper and put it on his wall. He wanted to play for an SEC school, and he wanted to win a national championship.

Both seemed distant in high school, though.

Sears originally got offers from schools such as UAB, South Alabama and Washington State, but not all stuck. For one reason or another, some fell by the wayside.

“Mark was less than lightly recruited,” said Scott Whittle, who coached Sears for two years on the EYBL circuit. “I have been on in-home visits with coaches where I thought they were going to offer him, then they didn’t. All of which wish they would have now.”

Sears decided to go to Hargrave Military Academy in Chatham, Virginia, for his senior year to gain more exposure and develop.

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Even then, few schools gave him a look, much less an offer. That included Alabama and Auburn.

Then Sears got the opportunity he needed. His coach at Hargrave, Lee Martin, took an assistant coaching position at Ohio. Soon, Sears had an offer from the Bobcats. He accepted almost instantly.

It wasn’t an SEC school, but it was an open door.

“I just told him to put in the work,” said his dad, Chad Sears. “If you decide something, put in the work and go get it.”

Summer of triples

Sears seldom went home the summer between his freshman and sophomore years at Ohio. He only recalled one time. Instead, he focused on improving.

“Some people were saying I couldn’t shoot the ball at a high level,” said Sears, who shot 27.5% from 3-point range (11-for-40) in his first college season. “Once I did that, I knew that was going to really open my game and take it to another level.”

Over the summer of 2021, Sears said he made 15,000 3-pointers, which meant about 250 per day. Each time, it took him about 30-45 minutes.

The next season, he shot 40.8% (60-for-147) behind the arc as a sophomore.

Sears' role grew, too, starting all 35 games and averaging 19.6 points, an increase of more than 11 points per game.

"There's no replacement for hard work, and Mark Sears hasn't cut any corners along the way," Whittle said.

After the standout year, he wanted to play on a bigger stage. His effort, and statistics, put him on the radar of many high-major coaches, including Alabama's Nate Oats. The Crimson Tide needed to improve its shooting after only making 30.9% of its 3-pointers in the 2021-22 season.

“He really got himself in the gym and turned himself into an elite shooter,” Oats said. “At his size, if you can make shots at 40% plus, it changes the whole dynamic of the game.”

Oats said Alabama decided to go all in. Auburn showed interest, and it might have had a shot had it done so earlier. Sears grew up in a family of Auburn fans. But by the time the Tigers and coach Bruce Pearl reached out, Sears' decision was made.

“I really liked what Coach Oats was doing here,” Sears said. “The fast tempo, the way he gives freedom to guards, you can’t really beat that anywhere else.”

Just keep going

In Tuscaloosa, Sears has been one of the most important pieces for a team that leads the SEC. He's again started every game. He's the team's leader in steals, second in minutes played and points scored and third in defensive rebounds, despite only being 6-foot-1.

He was key to the Tide's four-overtime win against North Carolina and went 10-for-10 at the free-throw line as Alabama pulled away from Arkansas.

When Kentucky came to town on Jan. 7, Sears wasn’t in the nosebleeds. Instead, he was on the floor of Coleman Coliseum, putting up 16 points, four assists, six rebounds and six steals in an Alabama victory.

If only seventh-grade Sears knew in January 2015 all that awaited him.

“It’s a blessing and very proud,” Sears said. “Just keep going.”

This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Alabama basketball found star Mark Sears only after he left the state