Alabama Basketball: What Nate Oats’ team must do to be Tide ‘Best-Ever’

Over the Alabama basketball horizon might be the Crimson Tide’s best-ever season. Comparing the ’21 season potential to the four best in Tide history.

Alabama Basketball has done well in the ’20-21 season. The Crimson Tide has the regular season Championship, 20 wins and sweeps of Kentucky, LSU and Auburn. More opportunity awaits.

Winning the SEC Tournament would be a big deal, given the Tide has not won one since 1991. Arguably, a bigger reward can be gained by success in the Big Dance. The Crimson Tide NCAA Tournament history includes seven years when the Tide made it past the second round. In eight Sweet Sixteen appearances, the Tide has one win. That came in 2004 and was followed by an Elite Eight loss. The overall Alabama Crimson Tide NCAA record is 21-21.

Some of the 21 losses were major disappointments. Among those disappointments were losses to Lamar, Illinois State, South Alabama, Kent State, Loyola-Marymount and a Bruce Pearl-coached Wisconsin-Milwaukee team.

This season needs to be different. One reason it can be is the Tide is almost assured of a 2-seed or at worst a 3-seed. For perspective on the relationship of seeding to NCAA Tournament success, 31 of the last 35 NCAA Tournaments have been won by a top-three seed team. A 1-seed won 21 of those Championship games.

What should be the Tide’s NCAA goal this season? Winning it all is unlikely, though not impossible. A first-ever Final Four appearance would be awesome. At the least, the Crimson Tide needs to prove its high seeding was accurate. That means winning two or three games.

Do that and the ’20-21 Crimson Tide will be one of the program’s five best ever. The others are 1975-76 when the NCAA field was 32 teams. The Tide destroyed North Carolina in its first game. In the second game (then, technically a Sweet 16 game) the Tide came close to beating Indiana. The Hoosiers won the title and were the last undefeated Division One team. Bobby Knight said Alabama was the best team IU faced that season.

The 1986-87 Crimson Tide won 28 games and the SEC Tournament. It easily won its first two NCAA Tournament games before getting blown out in the Sweet 16, losing by 21 points to Providence, coached by Rick Pitino, and led by Billy Donovan.

The 2001-02 team has the second-highest winning percentage in Crimson Tide history. Number one is the ’87 team at 84.8 percent; ’02 was 77.1 percent. At 26-6 going into the SEC Championship Final, the Tide had been ranked in the top eight Division One teams for six weeks. Mississippi State edged the Tide in the SEC Tournament Final. An NCAA Tourney win over Florida Atlantic followed and then an embarrassing loss to Kent State.

The 2003-2004 team was 17-12 and an 8-seed in the NCAA Tournament. It had lost its second SEC Tournament game to Tennessee in overtime. In the first round of the NCAA Tournament, the Tide escaped Southern Illinois with a 65-64 win. Next came a stunning upset over 1-seed Stanford, followed by a nine-point win over 5-seed Syracuse. The sudden magical run ended with a loss to 2-seed U Conn.

Alabama basketball fans can argue other seasons were more deserving of the top four list. Other Wimp Sanderson teams certainly had some great seasons. Where this season’s Tide ranks among the Tide’s best will be exciting to watch.

Another point of reference about the four past teams discussed above. The C.M. Newton team was in his eighth Tide season. Wimp’s team was in his seventh Tide season. The two Gottfried teams were in his fourth and sixth Tide seasons. Current Alabama Basketball, Head Coach, Nate Oats is being compared in just his second season.