Alabama players Naas Cunningham, Houston Mallette to redshirt 2024-25 season

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – Alabama has an absolutely loaded roster headed into the 2024-25 basketball season. So loaded, in fact, that the Crimson Tide will be redshirting two players this season, both freshman Naas Cunningham and senior Houston Mallette, head coach Nate Oats announced on the Crimson Tide Sports Network pregame show.

“We decided, kind of talking to them and their families, we’re gonna redshirt Houston Mallette and Naas Cunningham,” Oats said. “Houston, more he missed the entire summer with some knee injuries. And for his one year of college basketball he has left, he wants to have the best offseason he can going into it. And Naas, it’s conducive to him putting some weight on. It’s a lot easier to put some weight on when you’re not playing games.”

Cunningham was a top-50 recruit, but was still the lowest-ranked player in Alabama’s top-3 signing class from the 2024 cycle. He has tons of upside and athleticism and was at one point ranked as the No. 1 player in his class when he was an underclassmen, but needs to put on more weight and polish his game to be a steady contributor at the SEC level.

Preserving a year of eligibility, Cunnigham will still have four years remaining starting in the 2025-26 season.

Mallette is a more surprising option to redshirt. He transferred to Alabama from Pepperdine back in March, before the Crimson Tide roster brought in all of its offseason additions. He will redshirt to preserve his final year of eligibility, which he’ll use next season, likely when he has a more clear path to consistent minutes.

Oats hinted at the possibility of redshirting a player during the preseason due to the depth of the Crimson Tide’s roster. Last week, he explained that redshirting is a mutual decision between the team and the player, and that it’s with the player’s best interest in mind.

“Some of these guys, if you don’t have the pressure of playing in a game, you can get in the weight room on a gameday, the day before practice you don’t have to make sure your legs are up under you and are super fresh for the game, you can get a lot of extra work in,” Oats said last week. “There’s a lot of stuff you can do if you don’t have the pressure of making sure you’re mentally, physically rested and explosive for the game.”

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