Nate Oats wasn’t the first high-major coach to do it. Hopefully, he won’t be the last. But the type of scare his Alabama Crimson Tide got Wednesday at North Dakota in what amounted to a homecoming game for Grant Nelson is precisely why power-conference programs are hesitant to create road games that turn into mid-major Super Bowls.
Final score: Alabama 97, North Dakota 90.
Despite closing as a 25.5-point favorite against a North Dakota team that entered ranked 313th in the NET, Alabama trailed by as many as nine points in the first half and was in a one-possession game with less than 20 seconds remaining. This was a 40-minute fight, in part because Treysen Eaglestaff went bananas.
North Dakota’s 6-foot-6 junior took 30 shots, made 15 of them and finished with 40 points, making him the star of a contest Oats only scheduled in an attempt to let Nelson — a second-year member of the Crimson Tide who was raised about 90 miles from the University of North Dakota — play one final game in his home state in front of friends and family.
To be clear, Nelson was also good.
He got 23 points, 10 rebounds and the victory. But it was Eaglestaff who went viral by banging home eight 3-pointers while (according to Jared Berson) becoming the first mid-major player to score 40 points in a non-league home game against a top-10 team since Loyola Marymount’s Bo Kimble scored 46 in a loss to No. 7 Oklahoma in 1989.
As I (kinda) joked on Inside College Basketball on CBS Sports Network late Wednesday, if Eaglestaff has any interest in generating big NIL offers from SEC schools, putting 40 on Alabama on national television is a great way to do it. Continuing with the joke, if Oats eventually picks up the phone and reminds the people around Eaglestaff that he’s already taken one transfer back to North Dakota for a homecoming game and would love to do it again, who could blame him?
Either way, Alabama remains No. 6 in Thursday morning’s updated CBS Sports Top 25 And 1 daily college basketball rankings, where Tennessee is No. 1 for the 15th consecutive day. Next up for the Crimson Tide is Sunday’s game with Kent State. Less than a week after that, on Jan. 4, they’ll open SEC play against Oklahoma, which defeated Michigan, 87-86, on Wednesday to improve to 11-0 and remain No. 25 in the Top 25 And 1.
