Arkansas Razorbacks guard Davonte Davis guarding Alabama Crimson Tide's Brandon Miller. — (Marvin Gentry / USA TODAY Sports)

Razorback Faithful Try to Educate Alabama Basketball Fans to No Avail

Kentucky looks on in disbelief as Arkansas fans explain why they wouldn't trade last three years with Tide fans over regular season SEC championships

Author:
Kent Smith
Publish date:
Mar 26, 2023 10:18 AM EDT

In this story:

Arkansas Razorbacks

FRISCO, Texas – Late last week an Alabama fan made an innocuous comment that slowly peeled back layers that show just how late to the party the Crimson Tide community is when it comes to the world of college basketball.

It started off with a simple premise. Make a jab at the head coach of a traditional basketball school as a way of feeling better about your own basketball program.

In this case, it wasn't even that big of a shot, but Arkansas fans tend to be protective of their program, especially in the immediate aftermath of an NCAA Tournament loss.

"Hate to see Eric Musselman come up short."

There wasn't even enough there to be sure this was even a shot at Arkansas or simply a non-Arkansas fan of Musselman's who wanted him to finally break through the Elite 8 ceiling.

To be fair, the gentleman posting did proclaim to be the host of the Alabama shows running before and after Alabama games as well as a "cat dad," so, knowing Arkansas fans, there was enough there to justify correctly assuming this was the weakest of jabs at Musselman.

"Come up short? Muss has done more in three years than Bama has done in its entire program history," one Arkansas fan responded.

For the record, he is correct. Alabama has one Elite 8 appearance in its entire school history.

But here's where things got confusingly wild while the Kentucky fans looking on nearly choked on their popcorn.

"Lol dude has never won a conference title."

Kid you not. That was the actual response.

But it gets better.

An Arkansas fan tried to educate the poor chap that conference titles don't mean anything if you don't make a run in March. Clearly, Alabama is new to this whole being legit in basketball thing, so showing a bit of mercy in the name of excusing ignorance was the Christian thing to do.

But, all those decades of football school indoctrination just wouldn't allow this poor Alabama fan to wrap his mind around how college basketball works. He had to double down with what read like genuine confusion.

"But y'all haven't won't any conference titles or hung any banners under Muss."

Immediately every Arkansas and Kentucky fan on this thread lowered their chins and shook their heads in a physical display of the words "Bless his heart."

And that's not a sarcastic bless his heart either. It was a genuine could everyone band together to help this poor fellow in time of need bless his heart.

So, a charitable Arkansas fan surrendered his time to explain that banners start being hung at the Sweet 16 level, so there would, in fact, be three banners hanging in honor of Musselman's reign as Arkansas coach.

But, this poor man couldn't see that Alabama had finished far behind Arkansas the past two seasons and would fail to finish above the Razorbacks once again the following day as San Diego State put a stop to the nonsense going on in Tuscaloosa.

"So you'd rather have the last three years of Arkansas basketball rather than the last three years of Alabama basketball?"

Mason jars full of sweet tea simultaneously hit the floor in every home outside of Alabama that read this post. The most dedicated of church going folk had to stop themselves from accidentally cursing.

Friends, that was a genuine question asked by this poor lost soul.

Apparently, Alabama fans are stuck so deep in football lore that they think a conference championship has some sort of meaning in college basketball beyond seeding the conference tournament.

It's honestly such a sad statement that it doesn't warrant a response, but if Alabama is serious about sticking it out with this basketball thing then it's best to address it so perhaps someone associated with that program can stop embarrassing themselves.

Over the past three seasons, Musselman has two Elite 8 appearances, a Sweet 16 appearance, several wins over either the actual No. 1 team or a No. 1 seed and has taken down half the teams that played in the last two NCAA championship games.

Meanwhile, Alabama has knocked off one team while they were ranked No. 1 and had to let Nate Oats drag the entire university through the mud as his players took part in the murder of a five-year-old child's mother in the streets of Tuscaloosa just to make the Sweet 16 once.

No, Alabama, the last three seasons are so far apart it's laughable.

To put this in terms Crimson Tide fans will truly understand, throwing out conference titles in basketball as some sort of measuring stick is the equivalent of an Arkansas fan one day asking why Alabama fans why they wouldn't trade Nick Saban for Sam Pittman if Pittman won the Texas Bowl once while the Crimson Tide lost their national championship playoff game.

After all, Pittman would have a bowl win and clearly Saban can't win bowl games, so he's the better coach in that scenario.

Literally, the only things less valuable than a conference championship in college basketball is a Quad 4 win. The NIT had to make a rule that it would automatically accept any conference champions who didn't make the NCAA tournament because there were teams winning conference titles and not even making the secondary tournament.

Winning the Maui Invitational or that Phil Knight Invitational that Alabama got blitzed in by UConn this year has significantly more weight than a conference championship. Beating a Top 5 team or even UNC-Ashville has more value than a conference championship.

Had the gentleman pointed out Alabama's SEC Tournament wins in '21 and '23, that would have held at least a little weight since they technically get you in the tournament, but even with that, good programs usually try not to win because it cuts down on NCAA Tournament preparation time, unnecessarily creates a risk of injury and keeps the team getting to be somewhere special for Selection Sunday.

Neither the seed, nor the embarrassment of Texas A&M losing in the first round of the NCAA Tournament would have changed the slightest had the Aggies won one more conference game and took the title over Alabama this year.

Half the people reading that Twitter thread had to stop to go look up who won the SEC regular season title the past three seasons because no one outside of Alabama remembers. Arkansas has probably won SEC and SWC regular season titles over the years, but it would be difficult to find a Razorback fan, much less a fan of another team, who can name a single one of them with confidence because they don't matter.

If the SEC kept up with standings by groups that designated which day of the SEC Tournament a team played, that would be just as acceptable of a measure of success as trying to keep up with who is in first because the value of winning an SEC regular season title is essentially the same as finishing No. 4 in the conference.

And this is something Alabama fans will soon have to get used to in football also. With 12 teams scheduled to get into the playoffs, being SEC champion will not only be devalued, but it might almost be seen as a negative.

The SEC champion will have had to go get beat up in a conference championship game while the team that finished No. 3 still gets a solid seed and gets to rest players while prepping for projected playoff opponents.

Suddenly, Saban has to consider intentionally losing that No. 1 vs. No. 2 showdown between Alabama and LSU for the West Division crown and the right to face No. 16 South Carolina in the SEC championship game.

Perhaps a South Carolina fan will pop off about Alabama not having a division championship in that scenario and Tide fans can join Georgia fans in their own bless his heart moment also.

So, just in case it didn't sink in with Alabama fans, SEC basketball championships don't matter and no one in their right mind would trade the last three years of Razorback basketball for the enduring mess that has been Alabama basketball over that time.