TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – The No. 4/5 Alabama men’s basketball team enters the Southeastern Conference Tournament as the No. 1 seed and will begin its tournament run against No. 9 seed Mississippi State. This is the second time in the last three seasons under head coach Nate Oats where the Tide have entered the SEC Tournament as the No. 1 seed.
The quarterfinals matchup features two of the best defenses in the conference, as The Tide rank No. 4 in Adjusted Defense according to KenPom, while the Bulldogs are No. 6 in the country.
The Alabama-Mississippi State contest highlights two of the SEC’s best players in Alabama’s Brandon Miller and Mississippi State’s Tolu Smith, who were both named First Team All-SEC.
The Bulldogs advanced to the quarterfinal round against the Crimson Tide by way of a 69-68 overtime victory Thursday vs. No. 8 seed Florida.
The Broadcast
Saturday’s game is set for an 12 p.m. CT tipoff and will be aired on ESPN with Karl Ravech (play-by-play), Jimmy Dykes (analyst) and Marty Smith (court reporter) on the call.
The radio broadcast can be heard on the Crimson Tide Sports Network with Chris Stewart (play-by-play) and Bryan Passink (analyst) on the call, while Tom Stipe (engineer) is turning the dials. The pregame show will begin one hour prior to tipoff.
Notes You Need To Know
- Brandon Miller became the fourth player in the last 50 years to lead the SEC in scoring as a freshman joining Bernard King (1975), Chris Jackson (LSU) and Cameron Thomas (2021)
- Alabama head coach Nate Oats joins C.M. Newton as the only two Alabama head coaches that have led UA to multiple SEC regular season championships
- Alabama has won two SEC regular season championships in the last three years for the first time since winning three straight from 1974-76
- The Crimson Tide is the first SEC team to score 100 points versus three conference opponents since the 1997-98 Arkansas team
- Alabama won 11 SEC games by double digits, tying the program record set by the 1955-56 team
- The Crimson Tide is one of four schools (Houston, Purdue and Texas) to rank in the top 20 in both defense adjusted efficiency (No. 3) and in offense adjusted efficiency (No. 20) according to KenPom
- Alabama’s newcomers have scored 2,003 of UA’s 2,568 points (78.0%) this season led by Brandon Miller’s 19.6 ppg
- Miller is 25 points away from tying Collin Sexton’s record for most points…
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