Roll ‘Bama Roll Bracketology: Can Alabama help itself with some wins in the SEC Tournament?

The SEC Tournament begins this week with Sad Wednesday. The Tide, as a Top 4 seed, has earned one bye and does not begin action until Friday night. Alabama has drawn a bit more forgiving path than if it had been the 4-seed.

The Tide’s half of the bracket features teams ‘Bama went 5-2 against, though both of those losses were road blowouts. And, perhaps worse, it has the other two best offenses in the conference on its side: Kentucky, and a team no wants to play right now, Florida.

Still, it has dodged a bullet by putting the two best defensive squads on the other side of the ledger, where Tennessee and Auburn will almost certainly face one another. ‘Bama went 1-3 against that lot. That Arkansas overtime win could not have been bigger.

And, for some good news: While there’s almost no chance that Georgia or Mizzou upend Florida, there’s a passing decent chance that A&M or Ole Miss can goonball Kentucky and bounce them out early.

Worst case scenario to claim the tourney title: Alabama has to fight through Florida, Auburn/Tennesee, and Kentucky. Best case: just get past Florida. Most realistic? That’s probably also the worst case: Florida, Kentucky, Barn/Vawls…in that order, in three days. The Tide’s record against them: 2-5 (though there were four true road games in there).

So, given the steep mountain ‘Bama has to climb, what are its postseason fortunes? Can ‘Bama play its way up or down on its seed line?

Let’s see where ‘Bama is projected, going into conference title week.

Well, the Tide’s fortunes took a bad turn this week, as Indiana State, one of Alabama’s good OOC wins, suffered a set-back. After Indiana State won the MVC regular season title, it dropped a heartbreaker in the conference final. So, the Sycamores — solidly a lock last week, are now praying that they get some help.

The NET really has screwed over midmajors, y’all. We’ve covered that before.

Also, two marginal teams — the Mississippi State Bulldogs and Texas A&M Aggies, both need to make some noise to solidify their shot at a bid. They’re on opposite sides, so that helps. But Aggie will certainly face UK in the second round, and ‘State draws Tennessee, assuming it can get past streaky shooting LSU.

An early bow-out by one or both eliminates three of the Tide’s quality wins over tourney teams, and diminishes the SEC to just a six-bid league.

Really, much rides on the tournaments in relation to the Tide’s fortunes. Four wins that looked great last week may suddenly become relatively meaningless outside of the NET by Sunday. Blogging the Bracket has moved ‘State to the Bubble as a bye team, and bounced A&M out, failing a good run by either.

Chris isn’t alone here either. MSU is a consensus 9-10 seed entering the SECT, but only a handful of bracketologists have Aggie making the Dance, and that as an 11-seed.

For Alabama’s fortunes, we really need a State win over LSU, and then pray for an upset of UK over the Wildcats. That bolsters ‘Bama’s SOS greatly, and it improves the conference standing as an 8-bid league instead of one where only the top third made it, which would be the second-worst among the Power 5 leagues.

Here are the projected seed-lines for the Crimson Tide:

CBS has ‘Bama a 4-line in the East, which is perhaps the least forgiving thing I’ve ever seen. Why? After a nasty trap game against red-hot shooting McNeese State, ‘Bama would face a defensive slugfest between App State or Texas Tech. That’s bad enough, but the East also sees Kansas as the 3, UNC as the 2…and everyone is staring up at No. 1 UConn.

For my money, gimme On3’s bracket. Sure, Alabama is a 4-line, and yes, it is in Houston’s region. But the teams are far more forgiving. For a start, the Tide faces App. State out of the jump, rather than a three-point mercenary. Said three-point mercenary gets to face Dayton, where Alabama could get an interesting matchup against an old face: The Flyers and Grantsketball vs. Nate — talk about a contrast in styles.

The rest of the pod is fairly gentle too: Florida is on the bottom half of the region, as is Marquette — with those teams projected to meet in Round 2. The other Big Bad, Duke, is also on the bottom half: 2/3rds of the very good teams take care of themselves before we even get to the Elite Eight.

Yes please.

Lunardi’s at ESPN is almost as bad as Jerry Palm’s.

The Tide gets carted to the Midwest, where overall No. 1 seed Purdue, and the fouling lummox, are the top seed. But, he’s also thrown in Florida, Duke, a potential rematch with Clemson in the second round, three-ball FAU, very frustrating Vermont and Utah State teams, and two Big 12 teams…just for funsies.

And, in a composite of brackets, The Bracket Matrix has ‘Bama a four-across the board.

Can UA play its way up to a 3-seed? Perhaps. But I’m not sure that Alabama even wants to do that, given that most project a meeting with Duke or Florida to even get out of the Sweet 16. Four may actually be Alabama’s best spot to make some noise.

It certainly beats ‘Bama’s women, where ESPN has projected the Tide to face No. 1 Iowa, even they can even survive a dread 8/9 game. Though, it would be cool to see Clark do her thing.

And, before we go, let’s take one final regular season look at the Tide’s metrics.

NET: 8th (4-9 Q1; 8-1 Q2); last week 7th
KenPom: 11th (Off. 2nd, Def. 102nd); last week 8th (Off. 1st, Def. 101st)
Evan Miya: 14th (Off. 4th, Def. 75th); last week 12th (Off. 5th, Def. 84th)
Bar Torvik: 15th (Off. 3rd, Def. 106th); last week 7th (Off. 1st, Def. 73rd)
SOS: 2nd
ESPN BPI: 8th, last week 8th
RPI: 7th, last week 7th
RPI SOS: 5th, last week 3rd

That puts a bow on it for now. We’ll be back later in the week with some game breakdowns, special point spread picks, SEC tournament analysis and open threads.

Roll Tide!

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