The Alabama Crimson Tide is one of the hottest teams in the nation… and yes I’m talking about the basketball team led by Nate Oats, not the football team led by Nick Saban. The Tide are currently on an eight-game win streak with seven of those games coming against SEC opponents as Alabama Basketball sits at 7-0 in conference play, two games better than LSU who is in second.
Not only is Alabama on an eight-game win streak, but they have won those eight games by a combined 142 points, with their last three wins over Kentucky in Lexington, Arkansas at home, and LSU in Baton Rouge, being by a combined 81.
The Tide are scorching hot right now and proved that on Tuesday night against a very good LSU team as they set an SEC record making 23 of their 43 threes, and they put up 105 points in the process.
It is because of this that Alabama is currently 10th in the KenPom rankings, 10th in the NET rankings, 16th in the Coaches Poll, and 18th in the AP Poll.
In addition to all of their success as a team, John Petty has emerged as a potential Naismith Award Finalist as he is averaging 14.3 points, 5.2 rebounds, and 2.2 assists per game on 42.4% shooting beyond the arc, and 49% overall, he was also named the National Player of the Week last week and was once again named the SEC Player of the Week. Head Coach Nate Oats has also cemented himself as a contender for the Coach of the Year.
So all that being said, are the Alabama Crimson Tide contenders for not only the SEC title but maybe even the Final Four and a National Title?
The simple answer is yes, they are. The Crimson Tide is easily the current favorites to win the SEC Regular Season and SEC Tournament Titles, and because of that, they have supplemented themselves as National Contenders.
Bracketology Stat of the day: Alabama is the only team with 9 combined Quadrant one/ Quadrant two wins.
— Jonathon Warriner (@Bracketologist3) January 20, 2021
Alabama is the only team in the nation to have a combined nine quadrant one, and quadrant two wins. They are 3-1 against quadrant one opponents and 6-1 against quadrant two opponents. To put that into perspective, Gonzaga has seven quadrant one and quadrant two wins, and Baylor has five, and those two have easily separated themselves as the two best teams in the nation.
That being said, not only is Alabama winning basketball games, and doing so in convincing fashion, but they’re winning these games against very good teams.
With all this in mind, I think you’d be crazy to say Alabama isn’t a contender to make it to their first Final Four in program history. The Crimson Tide are 26th in the nation in terms of Points Per Game as they’re averaging 81.8 right now, are 21st in rebounds per game at 41.2, and are one of the best defensive teams in the SEC as well.
When you put all of that together, you have a team that could win their first regular-season conference title since 2002, their first conference tournament title since 1991, and maybe their first Final Four in program history.
As crazy as it sounds, that is where this Alabama team sits, they are a team that doesn’t just have aspirations of making the tournament, they have transcended themselves into a team with aspirations of hanging banners this season.