Alabama Basketball: History is on the side of the Crimson Tide

A few weeks ago, Alabama basketball fans loved it when Charles Barkley said the Crimson Tide was the best team in the country. It was too early for a ‘best team’ label then, and it still is. What can and should be said about Alabama Basketball is it could prove to be college basketball’s best team.

The combination of deep talent, Nate Oats’ wizardry and team chemistry provide the ingredients necessary to win it all. And ‘all’ means more than being SEC Regular Season Champion and SEC Tournament Champion. It ‘all’ means National Champion.

Some Crimson Tide fans might prefer such thoughts be held in abeyance until after the Tide’s next two games. In road trips to Auburn and Knoxville, Alabama could lose twice. In an uncommon situation for an Alabama basketball team, the Tide could lose the two games and still win an SEC Double-Championship and end up with a Big Dance 1-seed.

For those wondering how history is on the side of the Crimson Tide, it is not SEC basketball history being considered. Alabama could complete its second-only SEC undefeated regular season, with the other having come in 1956. But undefeated SEC regular seasons have been achieved five times in the last 30 seasons.

Far more potentially impactful is some college basketball and NCAA Tournament history on the side of the Crimson Tide. Thanks to Greg Harvey at Stats Perform, there is a data sample that favors the Alabama Crimson Tide becoming the next college basketball National Champion.

Since the 1981 college basketball season, only two teams have reached 11-0 conference games, while outscoring opponents at a level close to Alabama Basketball.

The Kentucky Wildcats did it in the 1995-96 season, outscoring their 11 opponents by 244 points. In the 1998-99 season, the Duke Blue Devils did almost as well, outscoring their opponents by 239 points.

This season’s Alabama basketball team is tracking above both of the college basketball bluebloods. The Crimson Tide has outscored its opponents in 11 SEC games by 245 points.

The significance of comparing these data points is striking. Alabama, Kentucky and Duke are the only three teams since the 1980-81 season to reach 11-0 in conference games by a combined winning margin of 220 or more points. When the Wildcats and the Blue Devils did it, they went on to become National Champions.

An Alabama Basketball National Championship?

An answer must wait until April, but maybe, and this far out, it remains a big maybe – maybe Nate Oats’ Alabama Crimson Tide is as Charles Barkley said, “the nation’s best team.”

Realistically, in the upcoming road games against Auburn and Tennessee, any win, by any margin is more than enough to continue the Crimson Tide’s roll.