The University of Alabama has always been known as a football school, and of course this is for good reason as maybe the most decorated program in the history of the sport.

Ever since Nate Oats has taken over the basketball program though, the roundball sport in Tuscaloosa has become among the premiere programs in college basketball as well and renewed a fiery passion for Tide Hoops in Tuscaloosa among both the students and the alumni.

A couple of years ago, serious momentum was building for a new arena to replace Coleman Coliseum, which is among the most outdated in the conference.

Unfortunately, inflation and rising construction costs as a result put the project on hold in favor of a new practice facility, a facility currently being built adjacent to Coleman.

During an appearance on ‘Hey Coach’ this week though, Alabama athletics director Greg Byrne clarified that the arena project is not dead, and said that they want to figure it out.

Alabama AD Greg Byrne spoke to “Hey Coach” tonight about the new basketball practice facility and added of a new arena, “Obviously, we unveiled the idea of a new arena [in February 2022]. We ran into some complications with that. It’s still something we’ve got to address. Coleman…

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“Obviously, we unveiled the idea of a new arena [in February 2022],” he said. “We ran into some complications with that. It’s still something we’ve got to address. Coleman opened up in ‘68 and it’s showing its age.”

Coleman has received an injection of life with the rebirth of the program, but if Oats is going to be around for the long haul, he and his team deserve an arena which matches the quality.

It certainly sounds like Byrne agrees, and the progress on a new arena is something worth monitoring over the course of the next couple of years.