Alabama Basketball: Latest Iona game info and predictions

Alabama Basketball: Everything Tide fans need to know leading up to the NCAA Tournament opener against the Iona Gaels.

Alabama Basketball vs. Iona is a 2-seed versus 15-seed contest. Going into the 2021 NCAA Tournament, eight, 15-seed teams had knocked off 2-seeds in Big Dance history. That stat goes back to 1985 when the field was expanded to 64 teams. A ninth 15-seed won Friday when Oral Roberts took down Ohio State.

If a tenth, 15-seed upset happens Saturday, it will not be the Iona Gaels over the Alabama Crimson Tide. The two teams have played once before, in the 1989 Cable Car Classic. Alabama Basketball won 78-39.

With only a couple of exceptions, no credible college basketball experts give Iona a chance to win Saturday. Wimp Sanderson who knows much about Alabama Basketball and the NCAA Tournament predicts the game will not be close.

"I expect a 20-point (Alabama blowout). There’s a couple reasons why. Iona went almost a month and a half (from Dec. 23 to Feb. 12 due to COVID-19 issues) before they played a game. Second, they don’t have Billy Donovan and Delray Brooks.Pitino will have a good plan for Alabama, but he’s playing with an average to below team."

Wimp’s reference to Donovan and Brooks goes back to this 1987 Crimson Tide game when the pair led Pitino’s Providence team to an upset over perhaps Wimp’s best team.

Pitino’s Iona team has some talented athletes. They have not seen a defense like the one Nate Oats will unleash in Hinkle Fieldhouse.

Most of the college basketball world agrees with Wimp. Scott Gleeson, writing for USA Today chose the Tide as one of the hottest seven teams in the tournament. Gleeson, along with several others contend the Tide has a legitimate Final Four chance. Even Charles Barkley coughed out a Tide to the Final Four prediction.

The Tide has a noteworthy track record, having won 20 of its last 23 games. Two of the losses were close, road contests.

In pre-tournament analysis, stat guru, Ken Pomeroy gives the Crimson Tide a 17.8 percent chance to make the Final Four. Pomeroy had only seven other teams with higher odds. That number went down to six with the ORU upset of Ohio State. In the same calculation. Pomeroy gave Iona a 4.3 percent chance to beat the Crimson Tide.

As far as an individual prediction, the game could be close in the first half. Pitino has now taken five programs to the Big Dance and his teams have made it to seven Final Fours. He will have a great plan. The talent gap is too great for even a future Hall of Fame coach to overcome. The Tide wins by 16-18 points and gets to rest key players in the games last six to eight minutes. Josh Primo is not expected to play for the Tide.

The game is at 3:00 PM CST and can be seen on TBS. It can also be streamed through this link.

In this most unusual season, three of the top five teams in winning National Championships are not in the tournament (Kentucky, Duke and Indiana). A fourth lost on Friday (North Carolina) and the fifth (UCLA) had to make the 64-team field in a play-in game.