Alabama Basketball: Across college basketball it was a wild Saturday

It was a musical chairs Saturday in college basketball – at least in terms of projected NCAA Tournament seeding. Alabama Basketball took care of business in Baton Rouge, despite LSU getting to the line for more than double the free throw attempts as the Crimson Tide.

Not that covering a spread matters, but the Crimson Tide didn’t against LSU. Alabama lost Brandon Miller for almost six minutes in the second half after he picked up a fourth foul. Three of the whistles came in less than 90 seconds of game action. LSU could make up no ground on the Tide with Miller out, with Alabama aided by three, three-point makes in the interval; two by Mark Sears and one by Rylan Griffen.

Afterward, Nate Oats called the game “ugly basketball” and was dissatisfied with his team’s defense. A counter perspective is there are no ugly SEC road wins.

The ugly award for Saturday was won in Knoxville by Auburn and Tennessee. The Vols won 46-43, with 27% shooting, including 2/22 from outside the arc. The word better cannot be used to describe either team’s offense, but Auburn made a higher percentage of threes; 11.1%, compared to 9.5% for Tennessee. The Tigers shooting success overall was 23.6%. Was the result more a matter of great defenses shutting down offenses? It was, somewhat, with the officiating crew not blowing whistles on many physical plays.

Tennessee escaped with no damage to its NCAA Tournament seeding chances. Many other top teams across college basketball did not. Based on the Feb. 4 version of the Bracketology compilation site, Bracket Matrix, of the 20 teams projected to be 1-seeds, though 5-seeds, 19 were in action on Saturday. Seven of those top teams lost.

One of the losing teams was the overall No. 1 projected seed, Purdue. The Boilermakers lost to Indiana in Assembly Hall, 79-74. Kansas lost to Iowa State by 15 points, 68-53. TCU also lost on the road, to Oklahoma State, 79-73.

Alabama Basketball and Arkansas got SEC road wins

Other than the unusual, Tennessee vs. Auburn game, SEC games on Saturday were predictable.  In four of the other five games, the home teams won. Kentucky beat Florida, 72-67; Mississippi State beat Missouri, 63-52; Texas A&M beat Georgia, 82-57 and Vanderbilt beat Ole Miss, 74-71. Alabama Basketball and Arkansas got the only SEC road wins with the Tide beating LSU, 79-69 and the Razorbacks beating the Gamecocks, 65-63.

The lesson on Saturday was no win is ever guaranteed. Nate Oats was right that against other teams on the schedule, Alabama Basketball would have been another of the top projected seeds to lose on Saturday.