Unpredictable.
Of all the ways one could summarize Alabama men’s basketball’s historic season leading into the program’s first Final Four, that just might be the most succinct.
Despite this unpredictability, the Crimson Tide is predicted by many to fall at the hands of the top-seeded and reigning champion UConn Huskies.
Las Vegas isn’t rolling with the Crimson Tide, chalking the Huskies up as a 11.5-point favorite ahead of Saturday night’s contest, one of the largest point spreads in Final Four history.
“We’re not going to be picked to win, I know that,” Alabama head coach Nate Oats said. “But sometimes the best team, the one that’s picked, doesn’t always win. We were an underdog against [North] Carolina, not as big as we are now, but we figured out a way to win.”
This has led to an interesting approach from Oats and his team.
In his eyes, his team is “playing with house money.”
“We’re going to go in and play as hard as we can, but there’s not going to be a ton of pressure on us,” Oats said. “We’ve made the school’s first Final Four and we’re going to enjoy the fact that we’re there.”
Luckily for the Crimson Tide, this tournament has proved throughout the years that teams with their backs against the wall can often be the most dangerous.
But just how large is UConn’s advantage?
Well, for starters, the Huskies returned six players from their championship-winning team last season. UConn also has the top-rated offense in KenPom, a spot that Alabama, which now sits at third on those rankings, held for much of the season.
In addition to having the most efficient offense in the country, the Huskies sit at No. 4 on KenPom’s defensive efficiency rankings.
The Crimson Tide comes in at No. 105.
This shouldn’t shock anyone who’s followed Alabama basketball this season, but it does illustrate where a lot of these predictions are coming from.
But if the Crimson Tide maintains its current pattern of play in the tournament, someone will most likely step up and make plays that put Alabama in a position to knock off the Huskies.
With seemingly no way for UConn to predict who that player could be or what he could do, Alabama’s unpredictability might just end up being its biggest advantage.
Alabama and UConn will tip off at 7:49 p.m. CT on TBS.
