TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Alabama basketball officially signed a pair of top-50 recruits Thursday, bringing in five-star power forward Aiden Sherrell and four-star small forward Naasir Cunningham.

The early signing period for basketball opened Wednesday and will continue until Nov. 15. Sherrell and Cunningham are the only two players committed to the Crimson Tide in the 2024 class.

Sherrel comes to Alabama as the No. 2 power forward and No. 18 overall player in the nation. The 6-foot-10, 225-pound forward averaged 18.8 points and 9.3 rebounds in the Overtime Elite League as well as 13.0 points and 5.2 rebounds for Vegas Elite on the Nike EYBL Circuit.

“We’ve been recruiting Aiden Sherrel for a long time,” Oats said Thursday. “In my opinion, he’s the best big in the country for how we want to play. We targeted him early. It helped that he’s from Detroit originally and I knew a lot of his people up there. He’s 6-11, moves great, can play on the perimeter, shoots the ball well, a lob target.

“We’ve had different bigs here. You go back to Alex Reese and Jordan Bruner, they could both space the floor really well and shoot it, but they weren’t really the lob targets that (Charles) Bediako was. Bediako and (Nick) Pringle have been great lob targets. I think Aiden’s the best combination of both of those. Like he can roll out of pick-and-roll and dunk the ball. He can pop and hit a three. He’s playing in a high school program right now that allows him to play on the perimeter, which is great for his development, and he’s showing that he can make threes like we like. Really fired up about him. I think he’s going to be a big addition to our program.

Cunningham is rated as the No. 15 shooting guard and No. 47 overall player in his class. He averaged 14.4 points and 5.3 rebounds per game for the Cold Hearts in the Overtime Elite League. He was also named one of 16 finalists for the 2021 USA U16 National Team.

“Naas Cunningham is one of the most skilled big guards, wings in the country, and we’ve done really well with those types here lately,” Oats said. “Going back to Herb Jones, (Josh) Primo, Keon Ellis, kind of that 6-6 – Keon started for the Kings last night – leading into Brandon Miller. We’ve done well with these big guards and wings. He’s coming in, he’s skilled, athletic. He’s got to put some weight on, but we’ve taken some guys like that in the past and been able to put some weight on them. I think he’s got big upside.

“We’re super excited about both these guys. We’ll continue to add quality players that we think have a chance to be pros in our program.”

Alabama is currently ranked No. 14 in the Rivals team rankings. When asked Thursday who he plans to fill his future roster, Oats said he will remain flexible moving forward.

“It’s going to depend on how good of a high school player you can get,” Oats said. “Kind of our motto at this point has been if they’re good enough to help you right away or if they’ve got real upside and understand that it might not be immediate, like, playing. The day of bringing a kid in, bringing him along, developing him long-term – shoot, if they don’t play right away, it seems like they want to transfer right away. So if they’re good enough to help us immediately or they understand that it’s going to be a long-term deal and they’re coming in to get better and play in our system, we’ll take them. Otherwise, we’ll go get kids out of the portal.”