Alabama Basketball: Final SEC Preseason Power Rankings
By Ronald Evans
![[Staff Photo/Gary Cosby Jr.]Alabama Vs Louisiana Exhibition Basketball](https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/c_fill,w_1080,ar_16:9,f_auto,q_auto,g_auto/shape%2Fcover%2Fsport%2Fd52848a4eb7615f740ab26aff7472abc2f19c9da2fa4f680acfe6317c5040291.jpg "[Staff Photo/Gary Cosby Jr.]Alabama Vs Louisiana Exhibition Basketball")
Alabama Basketball
opens the 2021-22 season Tuesday night, hosting Louisiana Tech in Tuscaloosa. Ten other SEC basketball programs also open their regular seasons Tuesday night. The SEC’s showcase game features Kentucky and Duke in Madison Square Garden.
Nate Oats has performed a significant roster rebuild and the Crimson Tide has a chance to repeat one or both of last season’s championships. Search through some of the highest-profile national predictions and the Crimson Tide will be found preseason-ranked anywhere from No. 1 to No. 4 in the SEC.
How tough will the SEC be in the ’21-22 season? The SEC is always a tough league. Maybe there are other conferences with more top teams, but the SEC has long been a conference where consistently winning on the road, against other SEC teams, is a high hurdle.
In an earlier post, a prediction was offered on the five SEC teams to best challenge the Crimson Tide. From a broader perspective, there are at least three other SEC teams that can be better in the 2022 season. It is hard to believe Alabama Basketball or any other SEC team can match the Tide’s 16-2 regular-season record from last season. In 2016 and 2018, SEC regular-season co-champions had 13-5 records. So much talent on so many teams indicates 2022 will be similar to the 2016 and 2018 slugfests.