Many Forms of Opportunity Await Alabama Basketball at SEC Tournament
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The SEC Tournament is one of the most fun weeks of the entire year for basketball fans in the South. Thirteen basketball games in five days, featuring every team in the league with a chance to punch a ticket to the NCAA Tournament.
For Alabama basketball, the weekend presents a plethora of opportunities.
The Crimson Tide has suffered somewhat of a slide down the stretch of the regular season. After starting league play 11-2, Alabama lost three of its last five games and finished the SEC season with a 13-5 mark.
Still, the Crimson Tide ended up with a double-bye in the SEC Tournament, receiving the 3-seed after owning a series of tiebreakers with other teams. The way the bracket shook out, Alabama will play Florida during Friday night's quarterfinal in its first game of the tournament.
If you remember, Florida beat the brakes off Alabama just over a week ago, winning 105-87 in Gainesville on March 5.
The game was the second-to-last game of the regular season for the Crimson Tide. Alabama won its season finale game against Arkansas by way of a 15-point comeback, and after the game, head coach Nate Oats had some words about his team's previous game against the Gators.
"We didn't play very well at Florida. I thought the guys had a little quit in them at Florida," Oats said. "We let them know, we’re not doing that again, this isn’t who we are."
Those are some harsh, strong words.
For Oats to imply that his team quit in the face of adversity is a brutal truth for him to not only share with his players, but to share publicly. That should give the team no shortage of motivation going into Friday night's game, with a chance to get some revenge over a team that left its own coach ashamed of its effort.
But if you look down the bracket even further, there are some more teams the Crimson Tide could face that would be opportunities for retribution.
The semifinals? The likely opponent looks to be 2-seed Kentucky. If you look back not even three weeks ago, the Wildcats hung 117 points on Alabama in one of the most embarrassing defensive showings in Crimson Tide basketball history.
And the championship game? You're in all likelihood looking at either 1-seed Tennessee, the team who walked into Coleman and swept Alabama to all but secure the SEC regular season crown, or 4-seed Auburn, who got a near-20-point win in the most recent edition of the Iron Bowl of Basketball.
Auburn, Kentucky, Tennessee, Florida. In other words, the only teams that beat Alabama in SEC play.
"[Nick] Pringle was the first one who brought it up, he called it a ‘get back tour’ or something," Oats said. "I thought we got embarrassed at Florida. [...] If there’s no upsets we’d play Florida, Kentucky, Tennessee. Obviously the longer you go, the more chance there is for upsets. But, all three of those teams, those are the last three teams we lost to. Florida embarrassed us, Kentucky embarrassed us, we lost a tough one to Tennessee, and they embarrassed us at their place."
All season, Oats has talked about this team having 'competitors,' or players who compete hard in the face of difficulty, or even after suffering defeats.
"I think there’s a chip on their shoulder. Any competitor after they get embarrassed wants to come back and show that they’re not that bad," Oats said. "Now we need to come back and compete a lot harder on these next go-rounds with all of these teams."
So, the Crimson Tide's path give it a chance to put its pride on the line against a number of teams that gave it tough losses, but it also has the chance to position itself better for the next tournament — the one that means the most.
Currently Alabama sits as a 4-seed in the overwhelming majority of NCAA Tournament bracket projections. The Crimson Tide's potential path in the SEC Tournament is a difficult one, but it offers the possibility of multiple Quad 1 games to improve its tournament resume.
If Alabama were to pick up two, or even three wins in Nashville, its chances of climbing to a 3-seed skyrocket, especially with losses from the likes of Kansas, Duke and Creighton early in their conference tournaments. Even if it solely climbed within the 4-seed line, that could be enough to earn it a trip to a regional site on the east coast, rather than traveling out west to Salt Lake City or Spokane, Washington.
On top of the potential to position itself with more favorable seeding for the NCAA Tournament, Alabama has the chance to finally play with a healthy unit for the first time in almost a month.
Back on Monday, February 19, Crimson Tide guard Latrell Wrightsell suffered a head injury in practice that caused him to miss four games. Alabama lost two games in his absence, and in his first game back he was on a minutes restriction, playing just eight minutes in the loss at Florida.
In that same game against Florida, Rylan Griffen suffered a calf strain, which kept him out for the season finale against Arkansas.
But Oats, speaking on the SEC Network during Thursday's second round of the tournament, provided some positive reports about Griffen's health.
"Rylan looked good in practice today," Oats said. "If we can get Rylan back, get [Wrightsell] back, we're hard to guard when you put those four guards out there together."
The health of the Crimson Tide has been one of its biggest reasons to attribute its late-season slide. Oats even believes that if Wrightsell had never gone down, Alabama would have cut down some nets and be in possession of another SEC regular season championship trophy.
But now, Alabama has the chance to get healthy, and get some momentum. The Crimson Tide's win over Arkansas, a game where the team did not play well for the overwhelming majority of the game, could certainly serve as a massive confidence boost. But an even bigger confidence boost would be playing well in Nashville and beating a few quality teams, while ideally making some shots in the process.
We know how dangerous this Alabama offense can be. If the team gets a few games to catch a little spark, it could ignite into a flame by the time the NCAA Tournament rolls around next week, and we could be looking at a deep run.
Just another opportunity that sits in front of this team as postseason play has arrived.
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