Saturday morning, when Alabama Basketball tips it off against St. John's, the Red Storm will be a heavily favored team. Rick Pitino has the advantage of using a football-equivalent percentage of revenue share funds. The Red Storm has not had a football team since 2002.
In his Top 45, Jon Rothstein has St. John's as college basketball's No. 3 team. He has Alabama as the SEC's fifth-best team at No. 17. ESPN's BPI has Alabama ranked No. 26 and St. John's ranked No. 15. ESPN gives the Crimson Tide a 32.7% probability of winning on Saturday. Bart Torvik's T-Rank numbers have the Red Storm at No. 9 and Alabama at No. 21, his sixth-highest-ranked SEC team.
Avoiding Alabama Crimson Tide Fair -Weather Fandom
Alabama can upset St. John's. If it doesn't, Crimson Tide fans who don't follow college basketball closely might need a supply of patience. Ken Pomeroy is a hoops data wizard. He predicts that not only will Alabama lose to St. John's, but the Crimson Tide will also lose the three games that follow, to start the 2025-26 season 1-4. Going deeper into the KPom predictions, he has Alabama going 9-9 in SEC play, after starting the SEC regular season 0-2 against Kentucky and Vanderbilt.
If Pomeroy is correct, getting swept into Crimson Tide fair-weather fandom is to be avoided. There are two reasons why Alabama will battle such adversity. As early-season basketball computer models reflect, the Crimson Tide is unproven. Alabama has minimal returning production and is a relatively inexperienced team. The other reason is that in college basketball, November, December, and even some January games don't matter much in terms of wins and losses. Nate Oats is probably like Nick Saban in hating to lose more than loving to win. But as a basketball coach, he accepts tough out-of-conference competition as a key ingredient to building a team for a February and March run.
Potential losses to St. John's, Purdue, Illinois, and Gonzaga offer more team development value than wins over UNLV, UTSA, and Kennesaw State. Alabama basketball fans will not enjoy the Tide taking its lumps. Neither will Nate Oats, but he expects later payoffs.