Due to a recent string of losses, Alabama basketball fans have begun to look on the 2024-25 season as a disappointment. That's despite the fact that the Crimson Tide ranks inside the Top 10 in both the AP and Coaches polls, has a 12-5 record in perhaps the toughest basketball conference of all time, and is practically guaranteed a 2-seed in the NCAA Tournament.
That's also despite the fact that three of Alabama's recent losses have been to KenPom Top 5 teams. The other loss was on the road to KenPom No. 15. Alabama's last six games have been brutally tough. It gets no easier with the final game of the regular season coming on the road against the No. 1 team in the country on Saturday.
This stretch was always going to tell us everything we needed to know about this team. And it did; it's just not what everyone wanted to hear.
Too many fans have taken to social media to complain that this team is a massive disappointment relative to preseason expectations. Others have gone as far as to say they hate watching this team. And then others have complained that the late season performance is just typical of a Nate Oats coached team that "struggles" to win the big games.
The reality is, Alabama is a really good team. They just aren't elite, relative to the ones that are this year. And the ones that are - Auburn, Duke, Florida, and Houston - are historically elite, at least in the KenPom era. Duke's 39.43 NET Rating in KenPom is the second highest of the KenPom era. Auburn, Houston, and Florida are neck-and-neck with what UConn was a season ago.
In most years, Alabama's 29.24 Net Rating would make them one of the top two or three teams in college basketball. This year, it puts them at sixth, and fourth in its own conference. Historical greatness by others has left Alabama fans with a sour taste about this Tide team despite the fact that, by KenPom's standards, it's the best Crimson Tide team since at least 1997.
This team is demonstrably better than last year's team that made the program's first Final Four. Analytics say it's better than the team two years ago that was the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament, too.
No, Alabama probably isn't going to win the National Championship this year. Only one team can do that, and with 364 Division I teams and a single-elimination tournament featuring 68 of those teams, it's the most difficult championship to win in all of team sports.
Spoiled Alabama football fans who have started watching basketball because of where Oats has taken this program have brought with them the wrong mentality. The football "championship or bust" mindset does not work for college basketball. Not even for the bluest of the blue bloods.
Tom Izzo is widely considered one of the best coaches in the history of college basketball. He's won one National Championship at Michigan State, and that was 25 years ago.
This is Bruce Pearl's 11th season at Auburn, and he's led the Tigers past the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament only one time.
Nate Oats has led Alabama to the second weekend of the tournament three times in five seasons with a good chance of making it four out of six this year.
Oats took over an Alabama program in 2019 that had made the NCAA Tournament just twice in the previous 12 seasons. He's about to lead them to the Big Dance for the fifth straight season.
Prior to Oats' arrival, Alabama had been a top 2-seed in the NCAA Tournament just twice in the history of the program. Oats is likely going to lead Alabama to that for a third time, with a second 2-seed to go along with the No. 1 overall seed just two years ago.
And of course, Oats led the program to the ultimate glass-ceiling breakthrough. They exorcized their Sweet 16 demons by beating North Carolina last year and advanced to the Elite 8. They then advanced to the program's first ever Final Four by beating Clemson.
The days of being on the bubble and hoping to make the NCAA Tournament are over. Oats has elevated this program to heights never before seen, heights that most of us long time Crimson Tide fans never expected to see.
And because of that, Oats has burdened fans with expectations they never expected to have. Putting Alabama basketball and national championship in the same sentence still feels surreal. But that was the goal for this team entering the season, a goal that is still achievable, albeit unlikely, because contrary to popular belief the season is not yet over and there's still basketball to be played.
Oats doesn't do himself any favors with expectations. He leans into them. He elevates them by the way he speaks. He's got natural confidence and charisma. He spoke freely in the preseason about how special this team had the potential to be.
Of course, that was before Latrell Wrightsell tore his Achilles. Before he knew Houston Mallette's knees wouldn't allow him to replace Wrightsell with his ability to shoot. Before 5-star freshman Derrion Reid would be sidelined for more than half of conference play.
The truth is, we'll never know what this team's true ceiling could have been at full strength. Unfortunately, that's sports and that's life. Things don't always work out the way you want them to and we don't operate in a vacuum.
But the truth is also that this program is in a better position than it ever has been. The doldrums of the Anthony Grant and Avery Johnson eras are behind us. And if the same old same old with Oats at Alabama is consistently making the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament and the occasional Final Four, then sign me up.
Maybe one day Oats leads Alabama to a national title. Maybe he doesn't. But fans turning on a coach and complaining to this level over a projected 2-seed is a sure way to guarantee we never find out.