In turn, you’ll see my bylines for Crimson Tide football, too, backing up my talented colleagues Chase Goodbread, Colin Gay and Anna Snyder. As a girl whose dad decided that a Clemson cheerleader uniform was a bigger necessity than a baby blanket and that I’d learn my ABCs to the band’s “Cadence Count,” I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t stoked to still be on the sidelines.

However, my biggest hope is that my coverage will remind readers of The Tuscaloosa News of the pageantry and tradition that follows Alabama basketball. Not just the 18 national championships or “The Other Five” over 121 seasons of football.

With Nate Oats’ team returning from the program’s first-ever Final Four run, there’s no better season than this one to remember who and what’s built Alabama men’s basketball into what it’s become. To uncover lost lore about Crimson Tide legends like Wimp Sanderson, Mark Gottfried, Ennis Whatley or Reggie “The Mule” King, and what we have yet to know from 25 NCAA tournament appearances and the ones to come.

That being said, I couldn’t be more grateful for the opportunity to find stories present and past that have gone untold, and give a new spin to those you know and love.