The NCAA Tournament is Alabama's to Win or Lose: All Things CW

Between the brackets, the momentum and the poise the Crimson Tide has developed, it'll determine which basketball team ends up winning the national championship.

Author:
Christopher Walsh
Publish date:
Mar 20, 2023 2:00 PM EDT

In this story:

Alabama Crimson Tide

The All Things CW notes column by Christopher Walsh appears in five parts each week, with the latest on the Alabama Crimson Tide. This is ...

Take 1

Purdue done.

Kansas gone.

Arizona toast.

Duke, Marquette and Baylor all sent home already from the NCAA Tournament, while Alabama basketball cruised to wins of 21 and 22 points while playing just an hour up the road from campus as part of the South Region. For state basketball fans, Birmingham was a weekend for the ages as Auburn was bounced by the the only other No. 1 seed remaining, Houston, in the Midwest Region.

Even though the Cougars are just two wins away from making the Final Four in their home city, its Alabama that's established itself as the team to beat.

It cant be called surprising, especially since the Crimson Tide was the top-overall seed, albeit barely. You look at Alabama's roster and many thought that it had the most talented team in the field, but after the first weekend of March Madness there's no doubt.

It has length, depth, key players and contributors at every position, can win even when its shots aren't falling, and yes, leadership.

There are players still around from the team that made the Sweet 16 two years ago, and aren't about to squander this opportunity. Topping that list is the one who blew out his knee in the first round of last year's March Madness, Jahvon Quinerly.

"Playing in the Sweet Sixteen and losing to UCLA two years ago, I remember that feeling," Quinerly said in the postgame press conference after Alabama beat Maryland in the second round. "I'm just going to let the guys know that, you know, we're close. We're very close, but we still got a ways to go, and we're definitely going to, you know, prepare as best as we can."

And now it has three more things going for it.

1) The bracket

The second-, third- and fourth-seeded teams in the South have all lost, which has completely changed the dynamic of the region finals in Louisville.

That's not to discredit the other teams that advanced, they earned their spots. Next up for Alabama is an underrated San Diego State team that back in November took Arkansas to overtime on a neutral court before losing 78-74 at the Maui Jim Maui Invitational. Arkansas, of course, just took down the Jayhawks. It's one of six teams Alabama played this season that are still going.

Yet the Crimson Tide opened as a seven-point favorite in the Sweet 16, when every higher seed is favored minus Michigan State.

In the bigger picture, the highest-seeded team between Alabama and the championship game is Kansas State. The No. 3 team in the East. All of the remaining No. 1- and No. 2-seeds are on the other side of the bracket.

2) Momentum

Alabama might be the hottest team in the tournament.

There are only four other remaining teams that can boast having won at least a share of their league regular-season title and won the conference tournament. Ironically, Alabama could face two of them in Louisville: San Diego State (Mountain West) and Princeton (Ivy League). The other two are Florida Atlantic (CUSA) and Gonzaga (WCC).

The only other league champions still around are Houston (AAC), Miami (ACC) and UCLA (Pac-12).

It would be easy to call it an unusual Sweet 16, but they're all pretty unusual nowadays. Here's the field by seedings:

1: Alabama, Houston
2: UCLA, Texas
3: Kansas State, Gonzaga, Xavier
4: Tennessee, Connecticut
5: San Diego State, Miami
6; Creighton
7: Michigan State
8: Arkansas
9: Florida Atlantic
15: Princeton

All of these teams appear to be peaking at the right time, but no one's been on a run like this team, which won its three games in the SEC Tournament by an average 17.6 points, and its last five games by an average score of 79-59.8.

That's despite All-American forward Brandon Miller dealing with a sore groin and not scoring a single point against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, and Alabama only going 6-for-21 from 3-point range against Maryland (and four of those were by the same person, Quinerly).

"I thought our guys did a great job focusing on the task at hand for three straight games of the SEC Tournament," head coach Nate Oats said. "I think they have done a really great job for two straight games here. First two rounds focusing on what they need to focus on when they are at practice, video, games, whatever it is. And then, you know, the appropriate big picture stuff will take -- you know, our guys know they are dealing with on that other stuff.

But here's the thing that no one seems to be talking about, or have noticed, from the weekend:

3) The smiles

Did you see the way the players were enjoying themselves after advancing? They were acting like the way they're supposed to, only we hadn't seen that yet from this group.

Seriously. Go back to when Alabama beat Auburn and clinched the regular-season title on its home court. Miller barely cracked a grin, as if he couldn't, or wouldn't allow himself to enjoy the moment.

It's easy to understand why.

With this, players were dancing with the mascot. They were posing for television cameras. And they were smiling. Really smiling.

You enter that into the equation, and it's clear that Alabama will be the key to which team wins March Madness, a position the Crimson Tide has never been in before. If it can continue to maintain its focus and intensity, and stay healthy, it'll continue to stand out apart from everyone else.

If it starts really hitting its 3-pointers again, no team can touch it.