TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – Alabama will be without fifth-year guard Latrell Wrightsell Jr. for the remainder of the 2024-25 campaign. Wrightsell ruptured his Achilles in Alabama’s 83-81 loss to Oregon in the championship game of the Players Era tournament. The injury will require season-ending surgery, which Wrightsell will get on Wednesday.

Wrightsell’s loss is a major blow to the Tide’s backcourt. He started Alabama's last five and was averaging 11.7 points, 1.9 rebounds and 2.1 assists this season. Wrightsell was also the team’s best 3-point shooter and was a key contributor during Alabama’s Final Four run after transferring from Cal. State Fullerton last season.

While Wrightsell won’t return in 2024, Alabama does have an option for his long-term future due to the timing of his injury. Wrightsell would normally be out of eligibility after this season, but Alabama has looked into the prospect of giving him a medical redshirt. Wrightsell has played in under 30% (or 10) of Alabama’s games and his injury occurred before the half of the season, meeting the requirements for a medical redshirt.

Alabama coach Nate Oats said there has not been a decision made on whether Wrightsell would get a redshirt. Should Alabama take that option, he would suit up for a sixth season of college basketball after starting his career at Cal. State Fullerton in 2020. The basketball upside to having Wrightsell available next season is obvious, but Oats said there will be other factors in the discussion.

“We’re definitely looking at the medical redshirt and we’re just gonna have to kind of sit down,” Oats said. “I mean, he’s already a college graduate so a lot obviously goes into that and right now our focus is more with making sure that he’s keeping his family — his family will come in and be with him during the surgery and just make sure he gets taken care of during the surgery and that’s kind of where we’re at with him right now and after he gets out of surgery after a couple weeks go on we’ll start to figure out what the next steps are with him on that.”

Should Alabama choose to medically redshirt Wrightsell, the Tide will have an elite veteran guard option in 2025-26, but the team could also lose one of its projected future options to help fill the hole left by one of its best guards.

Alabama currently has two red-shirting players, freshman Naas Cunningham and senior Houston Mallette. The latter’s redshirt came as more of a surprise, as Mallette has plenty of college experience, but is also a credit to Alabama’s depth at the guard position.

With the Tide's depth taking a hit due to Wrightsell’s injury, the possibility of burning Mallette’s redshirt remains in play. He would be able to get some game time in before conference play and his experience would certainly help Alabama — Mallette averaged 13.8 points per game and shot over 37% from 3 in their seasons at Pepperdine.

However, the initial reason for redshirting the veteran guard was to have Mallette spend his final college season as one of Alabama's most important players. Mallette has just one year of eligibility remaining, which creates a dilemma for Alabama with how it wants to maximize Mallette’s value to the team and final opportunity at the college level.

“We’re kind of trying to see — you don’t want to mess up what’s best for the kid,” Oats said. “In my history of coaching, I always try to do what’s best for the player and so most of the time what’s best for the player is best for the program. We’re trying to figure out if there’s gonna be enough minutes to make it worthwhile. So that’s definitely on the table, we’ve had those discussions over the past couple days.”

While Alabama has a decision to make with Mallette, the Tide is set to get a veteran guard to help fill its new guard vacancy. Along with Mallette, the Tide added South Florida transfer Chris Youngblood this offseason. Youngblood was the American Athletic Conference Co-Player of the Year last season and averaged 14.2 points, 3.9 rebounds and 1.7 assists per game, and shot 39.4% from 3-point range in four combined seasons with South Florida and Kennesaw State.

Youngblood hasn’t played for Alabama after suffering a leg injury during the offseason. Oats initially gave a mid-December timetable for Youngblood’s return and the fifth-year guard has made steady progress toward being available for the Tide before the start of conference play.

“Chris Youngblood is practicing every day, playing a lot of basketball,” Oats said. “We’ve got to get to where he feels comfortable starting to play games and there will be a ramp-up. He’ll have a minutes restriction once he’s able to start playing in games too and I’m still not sure when that’s gonna be. So we’re a little bit short-handed in the interim, but we should be getting Chris back here pretty soon and hopefully getting him to full strength as quick as we can.”

As the Tide awaits the anticipated return of Youngblood, its current guard options will have to continue stepping up to fill the large void left by Wrightsell. Mark Sears and Labaron Philon have both put in strong performances this season and have started the last five games with Wrightsell.

Oats has also liked what he’s seen from Auburn transfer Aden Holloway. The sophomore guard has averaged nine points in just over 20 minutes per game, and that number is likely to expand with Wrightsell out and Youngblood easing his way back to full fitness.

“He’s been good,” Oats said of Holloway. “He’s not shooting it quite as well as we’ve seen him shoot it in practice and I think some of that goes into we gotta space the floor better. We gotta get guys moving the ball. We gotta get shots, but he’s been playing pretty well. I thought his defense has really improved. He hasn’t been a big issue with the turnovers. He’s actually taken care of it pretty well himself. So with Writghsell being out and as many minutes as Wrightsell was playing, he’s gonna definitely be getting more minutes provided he plays well in his minutes.”

Wrightsell’s injury is undoubtedly a blow for the Tide and leaves it with some decisions to make regarding redshirts for himself and Mallette. No matter what decisions are made, Alabama will certainly need the rest of its backcourt to step up for the remainder of the season in his absence.

The Tide's new-look rotations will face two big tests in its next two games against No. 12 North Carolina and No. 21 Creighton. The Crimson Tide first takes on the Tar Heels at 6:15 p.m. Wednesday inside the Dean E. Smith Center. The game will be broadcast on ESPN.