Last year, fans praised head coach Anthony Grant and the Alabama men’s basketball team for making the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2006. After a strong start to this season, the Crimson Tide has been widely inconsistent, ranging from looking like a top 25 team one week to not even appearing to deserve to make the NIT the next week. Will Alabama make the NCAA tournament this year? Conflicted over my own thoughts on this question, I will now argue with myself to figure the answer.
Pro-Alabama: Yes they will. The team came out of the gates strong by winning the 2K Sports tournament, including 77-55 beat down of Villanova, a team that has just beaten No. 5 Louisville and No. 3 Syracuse in back to back games. The non-conference win over South Dakota St. (RPI No. 60) has looked better and better each week, and even with the loss to Tennessee Saturday, they still have won four of our last five games, including beating the defending NCAA champion Kentucky. If anything, the team has proven that they will be as tough as ever to beat in SEC play.
Anti-Alabama : No they won’t. They may have been strong at home during SEC play so far, but they have also lost at home to Dayton, Tulane and worst of all Mercer. Mercer! This year’s team is not a whole lot different from last year’s team: they play tough defense, but they can’t score. And at times they can’t even defend the paint, as best seen against Missouri when Laurence Bowers and Alex Oriakhi dominated Alabama inside. And if it wasn’t for Nick Jacobs’ best game of his career, they wouldn’t have even stood a chance against Kentucky. Doesn’t matter how well they may play at times, because at this rate, they would have to go 13-5 or 14-4 with a couple of SEC tournament wins to even make the NCAA tournament.
Pro-Alabama : But the team has so much talent and each of their core players are starting to emerge in the last couple games. Nick Jacobs finally proved he can be a mauler inside, Trevor Lacey has emerged into a consistent and clutch scoring threat and Trevor Releford has never shot better, especially from three where he has been deadly. Even Levi Randolph, who has been a stalwart defender for Alabama, is starting to gain confidence in his shooting ability. Plus they should be favored in 10 of their next 12 games, so they have a strong chance to finish 13-5, 14-4 in SEC play. And they have two huge chances to boost their resume when they play at Ole Miss and at Florida later this season.
Anti-Alabama: Where were all those “emerging” players in the first half against Texas A&M? Or the second half against Tennessee? Even with the improvements from their core players, they are still a team plagued by inconsistencies that doesn’t seem to have a chance to win unless they can hold the opponent under 60 points. And even then we have only averaged 54.33 points in our last three games. Even if they can beat Ole Miss or Florida, how can fans trust the team to even win seven or eight of their next nine games against inferior competition if they’ve been struggling against weaker teams all season?
Pro-Alabama: You are forgetting against Tennessee they should have won if not for a blatant foul that wasn’t called by the ref at the end of the game. And considering the other teams on the bubble this year, Alabama’s resume holds up pretty well so far. And with the talent on the team, and the potential the team has if Devonta Pollard ever gets going, they should have a good chance of making it.
Anti-Alabama: Bad calls happen all the time though. The reason situations like that happen is because Alabama constantly puts themselves in these high pressure situations at the end of the game. And if they don’t start putting away lesser competition then it doesn’t matter how great the rest of their résumé is.
As you can tell, I still can’t make up my mind on this team. But if Alabama basketball has taught us anything this year, it’s that we shouldn’t assume anything about this team and we won’t know until the rest of the season plays out.
