Where Alabama Basketball Stands in NCAA Tournament Bracket Projections
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — The SEC men's basketball tournament is this week, which means we are less than one week away from having our full bracket of 68 teams for the 2024 NCAA Tournament.
Alabama finished the regular season with a 21-10 record overall and a 13-5 mark in SEC play, earning the 3-seed in the conference tournament.
Ahead of this year's SEC Tournament, where does the Crimson Tide stand in NCAA Tournament bracket projections?
When discussing the tournament, there are two important details to go over. First, let's discuss Alabama's seed.
The Crimson Tide avoided what would have been a catastrophic loss at home to Arkansas on Saturday, which would have been a Quad 3 loss and likely dropped Alabama an entire seed line. It found a way to win in overtime, which, according to many bracketologists, kept Alabama on the 4-seed line.
According to Bracket Matrix, a site that averages the seeds of brackets from hundred of bracketologists, Alabama has an average seed of 4.03, or the third 4-seed. In fact, 106 out of 112 brackets listed on the site have the Crimson Tide as a 4-seed.
A 4-seed would be a favorable draw for Alabama. It would avoid having to play the dreaded, upset-riddled 5-12 matchup to open the tournament, and it would be just the 7th time in Alabama's history that it has received a top-4 seed in the tournament.
With as much movement that has happened on the 5-line in the past week, it seems all Alabama needs to do to truly lock in its placement as a 4-seed is get a win in the SEC Tournament quarterfinals on Friday. But even if it were to lose, a 4-seed still feels likely barring a deep conference tournament run from a projected 5-seed.
So with seeding all but out of the way, the biggest question then becomes what regional site Alabama gets placed in. This is where it gets tricky.
Unfortunately for Alabama, the closest first weekend sites, such as Memphis and Charlotte, will all be taken up by higher seeds who are closer geographically to those locations. The way the chips have fallen, a majority of the 4-seed pods will end up either in Salt Lake City, or even worse for travel, Spokane, Washington.
But there is a chance that Alabama could end up on the east coast, specifically in Pittsburgh. The chances are much slimmer, but after discussing with a few bracketologists that submit their brackets to Bracket Matrix, it seems that the Crimson Tide needs to simply climb within the 4-line to get Pittsburgh as its first weekend site.
It has a great chance to do so as well with its SEC Tournament draw. If chalk holds, its games would be against Florida, Kentucky, and Tennessee, all of which would be Quad 1 opportunities. What's more, Kentucky also sits right around the 4-line, so a win over the Wildcats would significantly help for potentially getting seeded higher than them.
So to recap, Alabama is most likely going to end up as a 4-seed. But if it wants to avoid getting sent out West for the first weekend, it needs to ideally win two games in the SEC Tournament, and would be greatly benefitted by early conference tournament losses from teams like Illinois, Kentucky, Kansas and Duke.
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