Why Alabama Basketball's Game Against Arkansas Is So Important For The SEC Tournament

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Alabama basketball's four-game winning streak has helped the team skyrocket up the SEC standings. After sitting in ninth place at 4-4 just two weeks ago, the Crimson Tide is now right in the mix for a top-four conference seed— and the double-bye in the SEC Tournament that comes with it.

"It makes things a lot easier, getting the bye all the way to Friday," head coach Nate Oats said. "So it would be great, but it's going to take some work."

Alabama has won the SEC Tournament twice under Oats, in 2021 and 2023, and was the conference's No. 1 seed for both of those runs. The top four seeds in the tournament do not have to play a game under the quarterfinals on Friday, meaning they only have to win three games to cut down the nets in Nashville and get to come into the quarterfinal matchup rested against a team that just played the day before.

Alabama currently sits in a four-way tie with Vanderbilt, Tennessee and Kentucky for third place in the conference standings at 8-4. Vanderbilt holds the tiebreaker over Alabama due to the Commodores' head-to-head win over the Crimson Tide, while Alabama holds the tiebreaker over Kentucky due to its win over the Wildcats. Tennessee currently has the tiebreaker over Alabama, but the teams are playing again at the end of the month, so that could change.

Arkansas sits in second place at 9-3, just one game behind first-place Florida. Alabama would leapfrog the Razorbacks with a win on Wednesday, but a loss would effectively guarantee that the Crimson Tide can't catch them, as they would effectively hold a three-game lead. This makes Wednesday's contest a swing game— win and Alabama controls its own destiny, lose and the Crimson Tide is a full game out of the double-bye without tiebreakers.

"If we're going to try to be a top four seed, this game is going to go a long way towards getting there," Oats said. "So let's make sure that the crowd's out, everybody's ready to roll, and make sure our team's playing the best they can be here at home."

SEC Standings (teams with winning records):

Team	Record (conference play)
Florida	11-2
Arkansas	9-3
Vanderbilt	8-4
Tennessee	8-4
Alabama	8-4
Kentucky	8-4
Missouri	7-5
Texas A&M	7-5
Texas	7-5

Alabama is in the midst of the easiest portion of its SEC schedule. Arkansas is the midway point and the only outlier of a five-game stretch where the Crimson Tide plays four of the bottom five teams in the conference standings. The last game of that stretch is against Mississippi State, a sub-.500 squad, in the penultimate home game of the year.

The final home game will be against Auburn, a team that is sitting at 5-7 in conference play and is slipping from a perceived tournament team to being officially on the bubble. Arkansas is likely the final top-25 team on the home schedule this year for the Crimson Tide.

"The other two could play their way into it, but the likelihood of that happening doesn't look real high right now," Oats said. "So we for sure have a top-25 team coming into Coleman tomorrow night. Let's make sure it's packed, and we're ready to go, because winning this game would go a long way."