How Alabama's Final Six Games Could Be Advantageous for NCAA Tournament Seeding

TUSCALOOSA, Ala.— We are officially less than one month away from Selection Sunday for the 2025 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament. No. 4 Alabama has six games left on the schedule, but because of the Crimson Tide's dominant tale of the tape and success throughout the season, it already has a spot in March Madness.

The question is no longer if Alabama will make the big dance, it's what seed will head coach Nate Oats and company be on Sunday, March 16. The Crimson Tide was placed at the No. 2 overall spot and the No. 1 seed in the Midwest Region of the bracket during the selection committee's initial top 16 seeds reveal on Saturday morning.

But later that day, Alabama fell to No. 1 (in both the AP Top 25 and initial top 16 seeds) Auburn 94-85 in Tuscaloosa. The Crimson Tide remained the No. 2 overall seed in Tuesday's ESPN Bracketology with Joe Lunardi, but these numbers can change very easily due to Alabama's final six games of the regular season...

Feb. 19: at No. 15 Missouri (fifth in SEC standings)
Feb. 22: vs. No. 17 Kentucky (ninth in SEC standings)
Feb. 25: vs. No. 21 Mississippi State (eighth in SEC standings)
March 1: at No. 6 Tennessee (sixth in SEC standings)
March 5: vs. No. 2 Florida (third in SEC standings)
March 8: at. No. 1 Auburn (first in SEC standings)

Alabama's had several high-profile non-conference and ranked SEC matchups that have led it to receiving the toughest strength of schedule in the country. Nevertheless, Oats sees this as an advantage ahead of the March Madness, especially with the final six games.

"Instead of looking at what we have to do, it's more like what we get to do," Oats said during Tuesday's press conference. "We get to play against some of the best competition in the country and test ourselves. If we bring it and are fortunate enough to get the win, we get to rattle off quality wins to get our NCAA Tournament seeding up.

"I saw the committee came out with their [initial top 16 seeds], I think we were a 1-seed but I didn't look too close at it. I was trying to figure out what went wrong in the Auburn game. But it did take a minute to look at that.

"Can we keep our No. 1 seed where it's at, which gives us the best chance to make a run to the Final Four? Well, we've got plenty of opportunities to do that. And we've also got plenty of opportunity to prep ourselves for the SEC tournament and the NCAA Tournament, both with playing pretty good teams."

These six games will be played over the course of a 17-day period before the SEC Tournament tips off on March 12. That's not a lot of time to game-plan for all of the different play styles and NBA-level talent that the Crimson Tide are preparing to face.

Oats, who has stressed throughout the season that he takes things one game at a time, can't give a complete analysis for future opponents just yet. However, he explained some resemblances between them that could create some early preparation.

"Missouri is somewhat similar to Kentucky, as they both shoot a lot of threes and try to play up-tempo, but they're a lot different too," Oats said. "Then we go to Mississippi State, they got some similarities with an elite shooter, like [Bulldogs guard] Hubbard and [Missouri guard Caleb Grill]. Kentucky's got elite shooters, but they're different. So there are similarities in these teams, Chaz Lanier at Tennessee, a great shooter who's super tough defensively. Tennessee does it a lot different than maybe Mizzou or Kentucky."

Nevertheless, every team has widespread distinctions that make it practically impossible to prepare for multiple weeks out. The same thing goes for when the SEC Tournament and even the NCAA Tournament come around. Unlike the regular season, these one-and-done matchups occur within a day or two of each other.

"But the similarities we've got to do a better job in what we struggle with and the differences we've got to be able to adjust game-to-game and play all different styles. Because when you get into the NCAA Tournament, you play College of Charleston, [which was] very up and down, free-flowing. Then you've got to turn around and play Grand Canyon––smash mouth [basketball]. Mo [Dioubate] wasn't needed nearly as much in Round 1, and we don't win the game without him in Round 2.

"So you look at these opponents, we're going to have to play different styles, different people and make another run in the NCAA Tournament. We've got these guys, whether it's Saturday-Wednesday, Saturday-Tuesday, just bang, bang––We've got to churn them out and we've got to figure out ways to get wins."

As previously stated, Alabama has already clinched its spot in the NCAA Tournament. That means even if the Crimson Tide lose in the first round of the SEC Tournament it'll still be dancing in mid-March.

However, March Madness seeding will be altered depending on Alabama's wins and losses up until Selection Sunday. Although Florida is No. 2 in the AP Top 25, the Tide is still ahead of them in the conference standings as it has one less loss and the same amount of wins.

It's not very likely that Alabama will win every contest in this gauntlet of a six-game stretch as Oats and company narrowly defeated Kentucky and Mississippi State earlier in the season and lost to Auburn, who fell to Florida.

It'll be a race between the Crimson Tide and the Gators for the two-seed in the SEC Tournament, but Florida indisputably has an easier final slate that includes two unranked teams. Auburn has all but locked up the one-seed as it leads Alabama for the conference lead by one game and also has a less challenging end to the regular season.

With this in mind, regardless of whether Alabama is the No. 2 or No. 3 seed in the SEC Tournament, it'll likely be a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament should the Tide reach the conference championship. Losing in the semifinals in Nashville could bring Alabama to a two-seed in March Madness.

Alabama's SEC Tournament performance over the last four years has been the definition of a roller-coaster. The Crimson Tide won the conference championship in 2021 and 2023 but lost its first matchup of the SEC Tournament in 2022 and 2024. Alabama was also the regular season conference champion in the years they won the tournament, but it'll need a ton of variables to go its way to continue the trend.

But for now, the focus is on taking down No. 15 Missouri on the road tonight at 8 p.m. CT on SEC Network.

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