Football-crazed Alabama sends 4 teams to NCAA hoops tourney

Whereas no Alabama college was in a position to convey house a soccer nationwide championship, 4 groups from the Coronary heart of Dixie are chasing basketball glory.

No. 2 seed Auburn is the lone Alabama college within the subject that counts as something however an enormous longshot to win all of it heading into the NCAA Match. Nonetheless, it’s the primary time 4 groups from Alabama have shared the match subject.

The regular-season Southeastern Convention males’s champion Tigers face in-state crew Jacksonville State Friday in Greenville, South Carolina.

“I’m at all times pulling for in-state groups. I used to be fairly excited once I noticed them come up on the board as a result of they deserve it,” Auburn level guard Zep Jasper mentioned. “They labored tremendous onerous this yr. One other crew I used to be trying ahead to seeing was UAB.

“These guys are additionally a terrific Alabama crew. It’s simply thrilling to see Alabama groups in it collectively.”

Alabama stumbled down the stretch with three straight losses however landed an at-large bid as a No. 6 seed. The Crimson Tide face the winner of No. 11 seeds Notre Dame and Rutgers on Friday in San Diego, California.

Convention USA champion UAB is the twelfth seed and faces No. 5 Houston on Friday in Pittsburgh.

Jacksonville State received the common season ASUN Convention title and grabbed the league’s computerized bid as a result of match champion Bellarmine is not eligible after making the transfer from Division II.

All of it offers a state identified principally for soccer one thing to have fun, a few months after the Crimson Tide soccer crew misplaced to Georgia within the nationwide championship recreation.

Groups from Alabama have produced some March runs, nevertheless it’s been some time since a number of groups have.

Auburn made its first Last 4 in 2018-19. Alabama and UAB each superior by way of the primary weekend in 2004, making the Sports activities Illustrated cowl with a headline “Candy Alabama.”

That Tide crew went to the Elite Eight however Alabama has now made the sphere in back-to-back seasons for the primary time since 2005.

“I feel individuals round right here must be reminded it has been an unbelievable season,” Alabama coach Nate Oats mentioned. “Let’s not neglect that we’re at a spot that is altering the tradition of males’s basketball.”

The Blazers have made the Candy 16 3 times, twice beneath Gene Bartow. He took UAB to the NCAA Match each season from 1981-87.

Andy Kennedy’s UAB crew set a single-season file with 27 wins and received their first Convention USA Match title since 2015 with an 82-73 win over Louisiana Tech.

“The Gene Bartow Commonplace is that this,” Kennedy, who starred for the Blazers beneath Bartow, mentioned after that recreation. “It’s when guys have items of a web of their hats.”

Auburn and Jacksonville State have not performed since 2013. However coaches Bruce Pearl of Auburn and Ray Harper of Jacksonville State are acquainted foes from their Division II days beginning within the Nineteen Nineties. Pearl was at Southern Indiana and Harper at Kentucky Wesleyan.

“We have been large rivals, recruiting rivals and so they have been our arch-enemy, not simply our rival,” Pearl mentioned. “It was very akin to the Auburn-Alabama rivalry and it was very, very heated at occasions. So I’d enterprise to say there’s most likely not a crew within the nation that Jacksonville State would moderately play than Bruce Pearl and Auburn, I’m simply telling you.”

Hoop followers within the state this yr have choices when selecting who to help within the NCAA Match.

“There have been a variety of good school basketball groups that made it,” Pearl mentioned. “So, it was a very good yr for school basketball, to date, within the state of Alabama.”

Simply how good a yr stays to be seen.