Alabama Basketball will open the 2026 NCAA Tournament on Friday in Tampa. The 4-seed Crimson Tide will take on the 13-seed Hofstra. We'll get into some Hofstra information below, but an early tip on preparing for the game. Ignore CBS Sports, not totally, of course, but specifically beware talking heads Seth Davis and Bruce Pearl.
After the brackets were announced on Sunday, Davis predicted that Hofstra would upset Alabama. Early betting odds favor Alabama with a 12.5-point spread. Picking Alabama to win needs no consideration of the betting odds. The Pride are not a bad team. They are better than 19 NCAA Tournament teams, based on KPom's rankings. Winners of 10 of their last 11 games, Hofstra has 24 wins on the season. Against Quad 1 competition, Hofstra is 0-1 and 2-2 in Quad 2 games.
Hofstra has not played a team comparable to Alabama's talent. Proof of that is their 10 losses against a Strength of Schedule (SOS) ranked No. 162. The worst SOS among SEC teams this season is South Carolina at No. 70. Alabama's SOS is No. 1 across all of college basketball.
In the CAA Tournament, Hofstra had to go to overtime to beat Towson. Google's AI says that Hofstra's best win this season came over Monmouth. KPom ranks Monmouth No. 180 among Division One teams.
For Hofstra to beat Alabama in the Big Dance First Round, the Crimson Tide would have to self-destruct its way to a loss. After the embarrassing loss to Ole Miss, the Crimson Tide will not give the game to the Pride.
Alabama Basketball Connection to Hofstra
Alabama does have a small connection to Hofstra. Former Alabama player Aaron Estrada played for Hofstra for two seasons before transferring to Alabama. He was the CAA Player of the Year each season.
Another open mouth on Sunday on CBS was Bruce Pearl. I can't report what he said because I took my own advice and 'ignored' whatever Bruce said. Whenever Bruce speaks, have a mute button handy.
After dispensing with Hofstra, the Crimson Tide will advance to the winner of 5-seed Texas Tech vs. 12-seed Akron. That Second Round game will be on Sunday in Tampa.
A 180-degree counterpoint to Seth Davis came from Jay Bilas. Talking about the Midwest bracket, Bilas sees Iowa State as the best team, but when asked about the greatest challenges to 1-seed Michigan, Bilas included Alabama.