The Alabama Crimson Tide have two games remaining in their non-conference portion of the 2024-25 schedule after narrowly beating the North Dakota Fighting Hawks on the road Wednesday evening. The Tide will wrap up the month with home games against Kent State and South Dakota State before opening up SEC play against the No. 14 Oklahoma Sooners on Jan. 4 in Tuscaloosa.
Head coach Nate Oats has made it a massive priority to play the toughest non-conference schedule possible to test his teams for the post-season, and so far it’s paid dividends as Alabama earned the No. 1 overall seed in March Madness in 2023 and made the Final Four in 2024.
Alabama is currently ranked No. 6 in the country at 9-2 on the year with their only two losses coming against No. 16 Purdue on the road and vs No. 10 Oregon in the Players Era Festival Tournament Championship. However, the Tide do have some of the most impressive wins of the early part of the season against Illinois, Houston, North Carolina and Creighton.
With five teams ranked inside of the top seven and eight total teams in the top 25, the SEC is without a doubt the deepest conference in the country. I do believe that Alabama’s gauntlet of a non-conference schedule as well as their depth will be a massive advantage in the race for the conference title because I don’t think anyone will be running the table in a league this good. By the time March rolls around, an already veteran Crimson Tide team will also be the most battle tested team in the country.
To the surprise of none, Grant Nelson and Mark Sears have paved the way for the Tide, but Labaron Philon and Aden Holloway are quickly emerging as key pieces for Oats. Losing Latrell Wrightsell to a season ending injury obviously hurts a lot, but Alabama has other pieces to overcome it.
March Madness is all about who’s hot at the right time, but Alabama will have all of the pieces to make a legit national title run. There are still things to clean up as the Crimson Tide surrender nearly 80 points per game and average 12.7 turnovers a game. Alabama has also struggled a little bit more on the road this year so that will be something to monitor as conference play starts, but their high octane offense will be a problem for any team in the nation.
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