Mikhail Torrance

Mikhail Torrance was good enough to play in the NBA. His heart, the literal one, is what kept him out. Teams passed on the Alabama guard in the 2010 draft after doctors flagged an enlarged heart, and two months later that same heart nearly killed him. He came back anyway, and went on to play professional basketball in five countries. Torrance died on June 18, 2026, at the age of 37. The University of Alabama announced his death.

He was born Mikhail Renard Torrance on September 30, 1988, in Eight Mile, Alabama, and came by his Crimson Tide loyalty honestly. His father, Micheal, had a basketball in his hands by the age of two. He grew up alongside a brother, Michael Jr., and a sister, Michele, and became a standout at Mary G. Montgomery High School in Semmes, averaging 22 points, eight assists, and seven rebounds as a senior on his way to being named his region's Class 6A player of the year.

At Alabama, where he played from 2006 to 2010 and appeared in 111 games, he was a long time arriving. He averaged about three points a game as a freshman and again as a sophomore, a deep reserve before he was ever a star. What made him a problem, once his moment came, was that he could finish with either hand. "He's got athleticism, size, and experience," Tennessee coach Bruce Pearl said after facing him in the 2009 SEC Tournament. As a senior, Torrance averaged 15.6 points, 5.7 rebounds, and 5.1 assists and earned a place on the All-SEC second team. His final home game was a win over rival Auburn. "It was very fun. You couldn't ask for anything more," he said that day. "We were able to finish it off with a win."

Then the condition that scared off the NBA became something far more dangerous. In August 2010, weeks after the draft, Torrance collapsed during a workout in Florida. His brain was deprived of oxygen, and he spent two weeks in intensive care on life support. "I was shocked and saddened to hear about Mikhail," his Alabama coach, Anthony Grant, said at the time. "My thoughts and prayers are with him and his family at this very difficult time."

Most people would have counted themselves lucky to walk away and stop there. Torrance went back to work. In November 2011 he signed with OGM Ormanspor in Turkey's second division and averaged better than ten points a game. From there he chased the sport wherever it would have him: the Moncton Miracles in Canada's National Basketball League, Salon Vilpas in Finland's Korisliiga, Cañeros del Este in the Dominican Republic, and Frayles de Guasave in Mexico, five countries in all, before his playing days wound down in 2015.

He never really left the game. He coached, working as an assistant at Faith Academy in Mobile, and officiated as a referee for the Alabama High School Athletic Association. Away from the court he worked as a realty specialist for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and, in his final year, as a licensed real estate agent.

Word of his death traveled fast among the people who had shared a court with him. "Get your rest. You were one smooth dude with a lot of talent," wrote Wallace Gilberry, a former Alabama teammate, "but more than that, you were just a genuinely good person." Alabama's basketball program sent its "thoughts and prayers to the Torrance family."

The guard who was nearly killed by his own heart at the start of his career had spent the years since refusing to be defined by it, playing on courts from Turkey to Mexico before coming home to Alabama to coach and officiate the game he had played since he was two.