Alabama Basketball: Tide’s slim NCAA Tournament hopes are still alive
By Dakota Cox
Alabama basketball achieved victory in a must-win game against Ole Miss, keeping their small NCAA Tournament hopes alive.
Alabama basketball has seen plenty of ups and downs in recent years. That continues to be the case in the first season of the Nate Oats era. The Tide beat Auburn and LSU in upsetting fashion, but they’ve blown too many leads to be firmly in the NCAA Tournament conversation.
That being said, they are still in the NCAA Tournament hunt. Joe Lunardi currently has the Crimson Tide as the seventh team out, which is not ideal this late in the season. That might be too far for Alabama to control their own at-large destiny, especially with no scheduled games against Auburn, Kentucky or LSU left. However, winning out would at least keep them near the bubble.
Their biggest game left is against Mississippi State on the road. I wouldn’t say that it’s a must-win scenario, but a loss would almost definitely mean that Alabama would have to win a game or two in the SEC Tournament. A win would certainly go a long way for this team.
Just because there isn’t a game that helps them a ton does not mean that there aren’t games that could eliminate them with a loss. Alabama plays Vanderbilt and South Carolina at home. A loss in either of these games would make the odds unsurmountable in my eyes. They have to sprint to the finish line, so stumbling in those games won’t be good enough.
Their win against Ole Miss was a must, so Alabama basketball is still theoretically in the picture of the NCAA Tournament. I’m not sure if they can get there when it is all said and done, but don’t count them out just yet. We only have two weeks in the regular season left, but there is plenty of basketball left to play.
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Alabama fans are surely hoping that winning out would be enough for the Tide to go dancing, and it might be. We’ll just have to wait and see how the rest of the season plays out.