Alabama Basketball: Latest bracket watch for the Crimson Tide

It is sweating time for Alabama basketball fans as we watch the ebb and flow of the Crimson Tide’s NCAA Tournament chances.

College basketball, rightly or wrongly, does not measure success by regular season play. Even winning a conference tournament is secondary to the seasonal goal of making the Big Dance. Alabama basketball fans can never count on a NCAA bid.

While the fans of college basketball blue-bloods only concern themselves with NCAA Tournament seeding, it is different in Tuscaloosa. Seemingly a perennial bubble team, Alabama basketball fans either sweat Selection Sunday every season or bemoan another NIT bracket.

NCAA Tournament Bracket Watch

Alabama basketball has an NCAA NET Rating of 45, a Strength of Schedule (SOS) of 19 and an RPI of 32. That is an impressive set of numbers, especially for a 15-win team.

With seven regular-season games remaining, the Crimson Tide should make the NCAA Tournament field by finishing 4-3. Even 3-4 might be enough with a win in the SEC Tournament. But nothing can ever be taken for granted with Alabama basketball. Limp into the SEC Tournament after a 3-5 run and get bounced in the first SEC Tournament game – it will be Bubble-City again. At 18-14, Crimson Tide fans would be praying for a play-in game.

Four wins to finish the regular season is realistic, but not easy. The next four begin with Florida at home, followed by at TAMU, Vandy at home and at South Carolina. The Gators are a bubble team and will be desperate for the win. South Carolina of late is playing very well. For Alabama basketball, the Gators are another ‘can’t lose’ game.

The finish is LSU and Auburn at home, followed by Arkansas on the road. Depending on how the season finishes, Florida and Arkansas, both down in the NCAA Bubble, could leap-frog the Tide.

Current Bracketology

The last Joe Lunardi bracket (Feb. 15) has the Tide an 10-seed with seven SEC teams in the field.

Jerry Palm’s latest has the Tide as an 11-seed and also seven SEC teams in the field.

Some basketball fans do not realize Lunardi and Palm are good but rarely the top prognosticators in a given season. The two below have a tremendous track record.

1-3-1 Sports has the Tide as an 10-seed. Bracketville has the Tide as a 10-seed.

The Bracket Matrix compiles 106 bracket projections. Currently, Alabama basketball is listed in the NCAA field in every one of the 106 predictions.

What is the NCAA Tournament Bubble Zone? The last four in (which can include 11-seeds) plus the next eight teams out is the primary Bubble. In mid-February so much can change rapidly.