Alabama Basketball: Crimson Tide takes two-game SEC lead

Alabama Basketball has been the SEC Regular Season Champion ten times, going back to 1934 when the Tide was Co-Champion with Kentucky. In six of the ten seasons, the Alabama Crimson Tide was the sole champion. The most recent of those outright SEC championships came in the 2021 season when Alabama posted a 16-2, SEC record.

Halfway through the SEC’s 2023 season, Alabama Basketball has the advantage to be SEC Champions again. At 9-0 in SEC play, Alabama is the league’s only undefeated team.

Three SEC teams are two games behind the Crimson Tide at 7-2. Tennessee lost at Florida, 67-54 and Texas A&M lost at Arkansas, 81-70, to join Auburn in a three-way tie for second place. Auburn plays Tennessee in Knoxville on Saturday.

Four of the Crimson Tide’s remaining nine SEC games are against the trio in second place. Three are on the road, with Auburn being the Tide’s only home game of the four.

At 6-3 in conference play are the Kentucky Wildcats and the Florida Gators. Florida goes to Lexington on Saturday.

The Missouri Tigers are alone in 7th place in the SEC standings, at 5-4 in league play. Fighting it out in 8th place, at 4-5, are the Arkansas Razorbacks and the Georgia Bulldogs. Vanderbilt at 3-6 is in sole possession of the 10th SEC position.

Mississippi State is next at 2-7, and the Bulldogs appear to have rebounded from a disappointing seven losses in eight SEC games, with wins over TCU, and Tuesday night over South Carolina on the road.

That leaves three SEC cellar-dwellers at 1-8 in conference play. Just halfway through a season is too soon to write off teams, but playing a spoiler role is about all that is left for South Carolina, LSU and Ole Miss in the SEC regular season.

Though Alabama has a clear lead over the rest of the SEC, Team Rankings projects that the Crimson Tide’s chances to win the SEC regular season are just 56.2%. The same source gives the Tennessee Vols a 41.9% chance and also projects Tennessee has a higher chance to win the SEC Tournament at 44.7% to the Crimson Tide at 31.3%.

What will happen? There is no telling in college basketball. Oklahoma, in its first game since dominating Alabama, lost at home to Oklahoma State on Wednesday night. The Cowboys were 12-9 going into the rivalry game and beat the Sooners, in Norman, 71-61.