Auburn beats Alabama to win wheelchair basketball national championship
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Auburn vs. Alabama is huge no matter the sport, no matter the setting and no matter the stakes.
In Saturday’s case, the Iron Bowl version of wheelchair basketball was staged way out in the desert, on the Arizona campus and at the venerable McKale Center in Tucson. And it wasn’t just a game of wheelchair basketball, it was a battle for the national championship, so the stakes couldn’t have been any higher.
It was No. 1 Alabama against No. 2 Auburn for the men’s national championship of the National Intercollegiate Wheelchair Basketball National Tournament. While the Crimson Tide have an illustrious recent history in the sport, Saturday belonged to Auburn, which outlasted the Tide, 70-59, to capture the program’s first NWBA championship.
It was a proud moment for the members of the team and for the school, because beating Alabama in anything is a proud moment for Auburn and especially when it’s for a national championship like Saturday’s clash.
The Alabama men’s team has been a powerhouse in this sport, winning 4 national championships, starting in 2013 and continuing with titles in 2018, 2019, and 2023. For Auburn, it was a chance to win its first-ever title in program history, and the Tigers were up to the task on Saturday, preventing the Crimson Tide from winning their 5th crown.
It was the 7th meeting overall this season between the rival schools, with appropriately Alabama and Auburn each winning 3 times going into Saturday’s showdown. Auburn won the previous meeting, 68-64, about a month ago, on March 6, to be exact, and, on Saturday, the Tigers did it again and captured some historical hardware along the way.
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Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
