Did Alabama Land on Selection Committee's Initial Top 16 NCAA Tournament Seeds?

For the first time this season, the selection committee unveiled its top-16 seeds for March Madness if it started today.

Feb 18, 2026; Tuscaloosa, AL, USA; Alabama head coach Nate Oats yells about a call he disagreed with during the game with Arkansas at Coleman Coliseum. Alabama defeated Arkansas 117-115 in double overtime. Mandatory Credit: Gary Cosby Jr.-Tuscaloosa News | Gary Cosby Jr.-Tuscaloosa News / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

For the first time this season, CBS Sports and TNT Sports, the broadcasting networks for the 2026 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament, unveiled the selection committee's top-16 seeds for March Madness.

NCAA Tournament selection committee chair Keith Gill joined Adam Zucker, Wally Sczerbiak, Clark Kellogg and Seth Davis in the studio on Saturday to announce the official list if the college basketball season ended today. Each of these teams would be given a No. 1-4 seed among the four quadrants of the bracket. The top-4 teams would be 1-seeds, programs ranked 13-16 would earn 4-seeds and the 5-12 ranked squads would be the 2-3 seeds in between.

Alabama, which comes into Saturday as the No. 25 team in the AP Top 25, was not named one of the top 16 seeds. Florida and Vanderbilt are the only SEC teams on the list — both of which beat the Crimson Tide this season.

The aforementioned Keith Gill said that Alabama and Arkansas were the first two outside of the top 16 seeds.

"We talked a lot about them getting to that 16 line, but they just didn't quite make it," Gill said."

Gill also discussed whether or not former Alabama center Charles Bediako's time with the team played a role in not including the Crimson Tide among the top 16 seeds.

"We certainly talked about it a lot," Gill said. "They were 3-2 with Bediako. 16-5 without him. We didn't necessarily apply like a material change to that, just because it seemed like it wasn't as impactful as some of the other injuries may or may not be."

Top 16 Seeds

1. Michigan (1-seed, Midwest Region)
2. Duke (1-seed, East Region)
3. Arizona (1-seed, West Region)
4. Iowa State (1-seed, South Region)
5. UConn (2-seed, South Region)
6. Houston (2-seed, Midwest Region)
7. Illinois (2-seed, East Region)
8. Purdue (2-seed, West Region)
9. Florida (3-seed, Midwest Region)
10. Kansas (3-seed, East Region)
11. Nebraska (3-seed, South Region)
12. Gonzaga (3-seed, West Region)
13. Texas Tech (4-seed, South Region)
14. Michigan State (4-seed, West Region)
15. Vanderbilt (4-seed, East Region)
16. Virginia (4-seed Midwest Region)

After falling to Florida on Feb. 1, Alabama moved down to the ninth spot in the conference standings, and the college basketball world started to question whether or not the Crimson Tide would be a threat in the postseason.

But a switch flipped after that loss, as Alabama has won five straight games and sits at No. 2 in the SEC standings. Everything seems to be trending in the Tide's direction, as there are only five games remaining on UA's schedule.

This list comes a few hours before head coach Nate Oats and company will face LSU on the road on Saturday. The Tigers 2-11 in SEC play, and may not pose much of a threat to the 9-4 Crimson Tide on paper. Oats was asked during Friday's press conference if this game would be a maturity test for his team.

"Yeah, I told them that," Oats said. "Tomorrow will be February 21, we're into the last week of February. You want to be hitting your peak come into February, March and we're here. This is the last week of February. So, are we going to be mature enough to finish the season well going into tournament play without a league championship in our control. We could win out and still not win the league.

"So, we're playing for pride. We're playing for seeding, we're playing to hit our peak. We still haven't had a whole healthy roster hardly at all this year. So, can we get our chemistry right? Can we see what our full potentials have been or still is moving forward with everybody? But yeah, I agree, it's going to be maturity test."

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