On Mar. 20, Alabama Basketball will begin its 28th NCAA Tournament appearance. The Crimson Tide's First Round game will be game No. 58, going back to 1975.
Alabama's NCAA Tournament record is 32-25. Nate Oats is Alabama's most successful NCAA Tournament coach with an 11-5 Alabama record. Alabama is 7-2 in the last two NCAA Tournaments. More impressively, in the last five seasons, the Crimson Tide has been a 4-seed or higher.
A quick review of how the tournament began and has grown, "March Madness didn’t begin as the ‘Big Dance.’ In 1939, the field was an eight-team invitational. The National Invitational Tournament (NIT), begun one year earlier, was the more prestigious tournament for many years. In 1951, the field was expanded to 16 teams. It took until 1975 for the field to expand to 32 teams, with incremental additions to 22 teams in 1953 and 25 teams in 1969. From 1979 to 1984, the field grew to 40 teams, then 48, 52, and 53. 1985 was the year of the last major expansion, to 64 teams. A single play-in game was added in 2001, with three more play-in games added in 2011."
When the Crimson Tide played Indiana in the 1976 Second Round, the game was what would later be called a Sweet 16 contest.
Going back to the beginning, let's consider the best and the worst of Alabama's NCAA Tournament results.