Alabama Basketball: Complete Crimson Tide NCAA Tournament History
By Ronald Evans
Getting on the Nate Oats Bandwagon
What Nate Oats has done for Alabama Basketball is dizzying. After an understandably difficult start in the 2019-2020 season, the ’21 Crimson Tide exceeded all expectations.
Prior to the 2021 season, the last time Alabama Basketball won the SEC Regular Season Championship and the SEC Tournament Championship was 1987. The Alabama Crimson Tide, as a competitive national program was built by C.M. Newton. Wimp Sanderson had the most frequent success with the Tide in NCAA Tournaments. Mark Gottfried led the Crimson Tide to an Elite Eight.
Mar. 20, 2021 – East Regional First Round – Hinkle Fieldhouse, Indianapolis, IN
Alabama Crimson Tide 68 – Iona Gaels 55
The Crimson Tide out-rebounded and out-shot Iona from the floor, making up 56.5 percent free-throw shooting. Herbert Jones led the Tide in scoring with 20 points, adding six rebounds, two assists and three steals. Coming off the bench, Jahvon Quinerly was the Tide’s second-leading scorer with 11 points.
Mar. 22, 2021 – East Regional Second Round – Hinkle Fieldhouse, Indianapolis, IN
Alabama Crimson Tide 96 – Maryland 77
Sizzling three-point shooting propelled the Alabama Crimson Tide to the win. Alabama shot 48.5 percent from outside the arc. In a reversal of the Iona game, the Tide was a perfect 10-for-10 at the foul line. The Tide dominated the boards by a 40-19 margin. Jaden Shackelford and John Petty Jr. led the Tide in scoring with 21 and 20 points, respectively.
Mar. 28, 2021 – Sweet Sixteen – Hinkle Fieldhouse, Indianapolis, IN
UCLA Bruins 88 – Alabama Crimson Tide 78
Alex Reese hit a massive three-pointer to take the game to overtime. The Bruins controlled the overtime period, scoring 23 points. Nate Oats described the overtime period.
"We had all the momentum going into overtime. They could have folded. They didn’t. They came out and punched us in the mouth."
Missed free throws cost the Crimson Tide the game. Alabama was just 11-for-25 at the foul line for 44 percent. Jahvon Quinerly led the Tide in scoring with 20 points, followed by John Petty Jr. with 16. Herbert Jones and Keon Ellis each had nine rebounds for the Tide.
Mar. 18, 2022 – NCAA Tournament – Viejas Arena, San Diego, CA
Notre Dame 78 – Alabama Crimson Tide 64
Alabama went into the 2022 Tournament, having lost four of its last six games. As a 6-seed, its opening-round loss to Notre Dame was a major disappointment.
The game stats in this post were taken from the Crimson Tide Record Book and this link at rolltide.com. Other data was used from ESPN and Sports Reference, the ultimate site for college basketball history.