Alabama Basketball: Winning eight straight and talking Final Four

Alabama Basketball: Nate Oats making argument Crimson Tide more than a football school, as roundball fans dare to dream of historic greatness.

Nate Oats believes in himself and in the Alabama basketball program. After eight consecutive wins, including blowouts over Kentucky, Arkansas and LSU in the last three, Crimson Tide fans are believing too.

At this point in the 2020-21 season, the Alabama Crimson Tide is the best team in the SEC. That is no small milestone, but winning the SEC does not signal NCAA Tournament success. College basketball is different from college football. Division One has 353 teams, although a few of them are skipping the current season. Elite basketball programs exist at schools where the categories, ‘Power Five’ and ‘FBS’ have no meaning.

So where does the Crimson Tide fit in, and what should be the basketball ambitions in Tuscaloosa? A current record of 12-3 provides encouragement. Winning eight straight is exciting, though far less than the Tide’s record streak of 20 wins in the undefeated 1930 season. Johnny Dee’s 1956 team was 21-3 and 14-0 in SEC play. Such historical comparisons earlier than the Tide’s first NCAA Tournament game in 1975, have little merit.

Some Alabama basketball fans see the 2004, Elite Eight season, as the pinnacle of the Tide’s roundball success. It was the program’s deepest run in the NCAA Tournament, coming just one win shy of making the Final Four. An Elite Eight appearance is a significant milestone, but in terms of winning, the Crimson Tide was better at periods under C.M. Newton and Wimp Sanderson. In a five-season run 1973 through 1977, Newton’s teams won 114 games. Over an 11 year span under Wimp Sanderson, the Crimson Tide won 249 games, an average of 22.6 wins each season, along with four SEC Tournament Championships and made the NCAA ‘Sweet 16’ five times.

A detailed summary of Alabama basketball history is available here.

Nate Oats believes the Alabama basketball program can surpass all that history. When Oats was hired, he was asked about making Alabama a basketball school. Talking about going to a Final Four, Oats said,

"OK, how high a level can you take (the program), I’d like to play for national championships.Can you do that here? Yeah, I believe you can. I mean, they proved it in I don’t know how many other different sports. You go through the list of sports that have won national championships here, they’ve got a bunch of them. Football competes for it every year. There’s no reason we can’t get to that level."

Bold statements are standard fare in introductory press conferences. Nate Oats and the Crimson Tide have much to prove. Three games away from finishing the January schedule, Oats and his team have Crimson Tide fans believing a Final Four is not a crazy aspiration. More importantly, his team is playing as if they believe it as well.

How far can the Tide go in 2021? A good source for predictions, Warren Nolan, has the Crimson Tide finishing the regular season at 22-6.