An Instagram Post That Said Too Much

Greg Byrne has never been accused of subtlety. On Saturday night, hours after Alabama's season ended with a Sweet Sixteen blowout at the hands of top-seeded Michigan, the Crimson Tide athletic director posted a photo of himself standing beside Nate Oats with a caption that read like a man trying to convince himself: "We are good! He's not going anywhere!" He included a link to Yea Alabama, the school's NIL collective. It was the kind of post that answers a question nobody had publicly asked — which is precisely why it raised so many.

The question Byrne was really answering has a specific dollar figure attached to it: $18 million. That is the cost, as of this writing, for any program to pry Oats away from Tuscaloosa. It is the highest buyout of any coach in college basketball, a financial moat Alabama built deliberately when it signed Oats to his most recent extension in March 2024. But that moat has an expiration date. On April 1 — two days from now — the buyout drops to $10 million. And sitting 700 miles northeast, with an empty coaching office and a search firm on retainer, North Carolina is watching the calendar with considerable interest.

Anatomy of a Buyout Cliff

The architecture of Oats' contract tells a story Alabama would prefer to keep quiet. His deal, signed in March 2024 and running through 2030, includes a staggered buyout schedule that drops precipitously at each April 1 checkpoint: $18 million before April 2026, $10 million through March 2027, $4 million through March 2028, and nothing after that. The structure was designed to make Oats prohibitively expensive during the peak of coaching carousel season, which runs from mid-March through April. It works brilliantly — until the calendar catches up.

What makes the April 1 cliff so dangerous for Alabama is not the raw number. Ten million dollars is still an enormous sum. What makes it dangerous is the context. Arizona's Tommy Lloyd carries a buyout estimated between $9 million and $11 million. Florida's Todd Golden sits at $16 million before mid-April, $11 million after. Michigan's Dusty May is at roughly $7.5 million. After Tuesday, Nate Oats — a coach with a 170-72 record at Alabama, six NCAA Tournament appearances, and a Final Four on his resume — becomes comparable in price to coaches with far thinner accomplishments.

Oats himself acknowledged the situation with the kind of candor that makes front offices nervous. "I don't have an offer in hand, but we've had some discussions, and it's probably getting close," he told reporters at Sweet Sixteen preparation. "I feel like I'm probably too honest with everybody." In the same breath, he added: "Absolutely no reason to leave here." The words sounded reassuring. The sequence did not. Coaches who are staying don't usually mention the absence of an offer.

Chapel Hill's Holding Pattern

UNC's coaching search has the structure of a chess match being played on two boards simultaneously. On one board, athletic director Bubba Cunningham and his deputy Steve Newmark — widely regarded as Cunningham's successor — are working with search firm Turnkey ZRG to build a candidate list. "No, there's not a fixed deadline," Cunningham told reporters. "We want to get the right person." On the other board, the NCAA Tournament is still being played, and two of UNC's most coveted targets are coaching in the Final Four.

Dusty May took Michigan to the national semifinal in just his second season in Ann Arbor. Tommy Lloyd has Arizona in Indianapolis as well, marking his second Final Four in four years. Neither coach can be formally contacted until after the national championship game on April 6. The problem for UNC is structural: the transfer portal opens on April 7, one day after the Final Four ends. Every day without a head coach is a day recruits and current players drift toward the portal, toward other programs, toward uncertainty.

Then there is Billy Donovan, the ghost candidate. The Chicago Bulls' season will likely end around April 12. A source close to Donovan told CBS Sports that "unless you tell him he is the guy, Billy's not going to want to go through the process." Donovan has not coached college basketball since leaving Florida in 2015 — an 11-year gap. This is the first time in 74 years that Carolina will hire a coach with no direct ties to the Dean Smith coaching tree.

A Pattern Alabama Knows Too Well

Here is the detail that should alarm Tuscaloosa: this has happened before. In February 2024, Oats' buyout was scheduled to drop from $12 million to $10 million. Alabama signed the extension — the one that raised the buyout to $18 million — "on the Friday before" the reduction took effect, according to CBS Sports. The same chess move is playing out now, except the stakes are higher, the interested party is more desperate, and the buyout cliff is steeper.

Byrne has been proactive in the past, extending Oats five times in seven years. But proactive is a word that means less when the contract still isn't signed. Oats' current salary is $5.51 million after a March 15 step-up. The expected extension will make him one of the top 10 highest-paid coaches in college basketball. Alabama can afford it. The question is whether they can close it before Tuesday.

Oats has said the right things. "I'm not a guy that's trying to always jump around. The grass is not always greener." And: "As long as we're able to compete to win championships here — SEC, national championships, we haven't done that here yet — I don't see any reason to leave." That last clause is the one that matters. He hasn't won a national championship at Alabama. He knows it. And if North Carolina calls with a number that matches his ambition and a tradition that dwarfs Alabama's basketball history, the grass might look a shade greener than it did on Saturday night.

What Happens Tuesday

The next 48 hours will determine whether Alabama's $18 million moat holds. If Byrne closes the extension before April 1, the conversation ends — at least until next year's cliff. If he doesn't, the coaching market reshapes overnight. Oats at $10 million is cheaper than Todd Golden, comparable to Tommy Lloyd, and only $2.5 million more than Dusty May. For a program that just hired a search firm and publicly declared itself the best job in America, that is a price worth paying.

Rick Pitino said it best this postseason: "There's no such thing as a blue blood anymore." Maybe not. But there is still such a thing as a deadline. Alabama's is Tuesday.