On Thursday evening, BYU and Alabama clashed in the East Regional in Raleigh, North Carolina.

and the BYU Cougars faced off against and the Alabama Crimson Tide in the third round of the 2025 NCAA Tournament. The pair traded blows throughout the first half until Alabama started to pull away. They entered the halftime break up by 11 points and never looked back, advancing to the Elite 8 with the win.

With that, here are the top three takeaways from Alabama’s 113-88 win over the Cougars.

 

To say that Alabama guard went off in the Sweet 16 game vs. BYU is an understatement, as he went nuclear against the Cougars. Sears nearly broke a long-standing NCAA Tournament record for most three-pointers in a single game but came up one three short.

Still, he saw the longball fall 10 different times in the contest, going 10-16 from three and 11-18 overall. It did not matter who was guarding him on Thursday as the rim became the size of a hula hoop for the First-Team All-American. He finished his night with a game-high 34 points, alongside eight assists and three rebounds.

 

Unfortunately for BYU, they ran into history on Thursday night, with Alabama breaking the record for most three-point shots made in an NCAA Tournament game.

The Crimson Tide took a total of 66 shots tonight, and a whopping 51 of them were from three! The team didn’t just use the game to audition as an expansion NBA team with little to no defense and bad shot attempts from three; they actually connected on a large bulk of them, hitting 25 shots from three-point land.

It’s a tale as old as time: Sometimes, it’s just not your night. BYU took that statement to heart as the Crimson Tide moved on to the Elite Eight.

 

Although it may sound like a consolation prize after losing a big game, it’s impossible to avoid noticing the bright future for BYU. First-year head coach Kevin Young built an incredible roster with talent and youth as far as the eye can see, solidifying himself as one of the nation’s best recruiters and X’s and O’s guys.

His BYU squad finished 25th in the country with 81.3 points per game, and with an impressive player coming in like AJ Dybantsa, the ceiling should be astronomically high in 2025-26.

While it may take some work, there is a path toward retaining and Richie Saunders (though it may seem like an uphill battle for Demin to return at this point). With some of the most NIL money in the country and a rich history program led by a Top-10 coach in college basketball, BYU will be a threat for a long, long time.