NCAA Basketball: Buy or Sell Alabama, Gonzaga, and Kansas as title contenders?
By Bryan Mauro
Alabama Crimson Tide – Sell
The Controversy of not picking Alabama as a Buy to win the title. It’s okay Tide fans please don’t come after me. I do think your team is good and will likely make their first final four in school history. It was an eventful year for Alabama, and I will just leave it at that. There was a year rife with scandal, a team that was the best in school history, and a team that likely has the first college player taken in the NBA Draft. Since the scandal happened for the Tide, they have been a different feel surrounding Alabama.
The Tide were blowing out most of their SEC opponents and looked and played like the clear number 1 team in the country they were for a few weeks. However, after the Brandon Miller news came to light something changed. The Tide was struggling to beat far superior opponents, they would eventually win the game but were not winning with the same domination and comfort level as they were before. I don’t know if it is a chemistry issue now with Alabama or is just a great team coming back down to reality from a ridiculous stretch to start 2023. Hopefully, they can regain their focus in the NCAA tournament as the team has likely earned their first ever 1 seed in the Big Dance.
The Crimson Tide play at one of the fastest paces in the country, love to get out in transition, and take a ton of threes. They do not make nearly enough three-point shots to account for the sheer volume of the shots they do take. Alabama makes up for it though with extremely efficient offense from inside the arc, protecting the rim on defense, and being an elite rebounding team that they will still make a deep run. I don’t know how they continue to perform against the elite teams though. Especially the older teams. Alabama is still very good but are they good enough to win the title? That is the question.