All previews: click here for the full 2023 NCAA tournament schedule
Alabama Crimson Tide
Seed: 1
Record: 29-5
Conference: SEC
vs.
Texas A&M Corpus Christi Islanders
Seed: 16
Record: 24-10
Conference: Southland
Date: Friday, March 17
Time: 2:45 pm Eastern
Region: South
Location: Birmingham, AL
Channel: CBS
Alabama's national title hunt begins—in basketball for a change.
Alabama Texas A&M CC
Power Ratings
Strength: #1 Strength: #206
Median: #2 Median: #197
Markov: #5 Markov: #202
Pomeroy: #2 Pomeroy: #172
Offense: #19 Offense: #142
Defense: #3 Defense: #224
BPI: #2 BPI: #210
LRMC: #3 LRMC: #188
Other Measures:
SOS: #9 SOS: #348
Tempo (Offense): #5 Tempo (Offense): #55
Consistency: #363 Consistency: #236
Str + Reliability: #17 Str + Reliability: #215
Str + Potential: #1 Str + Potential: #183
2nd half season: #1 2nd half season: #207
Last 6: #8 Last 6: #206
Injury Mod Rank: #2 Injury Mod Rank: #208
MegaScreen Ranking MegaScreen Ranking
Final 4: NA Final 4: NA
Sweet 16: #4 Sweet 16: NA
Alabama is a fully proper 1-seed with several top rankings by their name. #1 in Strength. #2 in Pomeroy and BPI, #3 in LRMC. The Markov Chain ranking interestingly puts the Tide only #5, probably because their high variability affects them there. Alabama has the #3 defense and still a top 20 offense, a tough combination to beat. Texas A&M CC has the profile of a 16-seed.
Perhaps the starkest difference is in strength of schedule, where Alabama played the 9th toughest and TAMU-CC played the 16th easiest in the country. The pace of this game should be lightning fast as Alabama is one of the fastest offenses in basketball and TAMU-CC likes a quick pace, too. But don't look for a reliable result to the point—Alabama is the most inconsistent team in the country, as we'll see on their chart later. In this case it probably just means we don't know if they'll win by 15, 20, or 25 or more, but for a deep tournament trip, wide variability can trip you up with a downside game, one reason why the Tide were screened out of the Final Four in the MegaScreen despite being #4 in the Sweet 16 rankings.
Alabama only ranks #8 in the last six games due to a four-game stretch where the team was out of sorts following the Brandon Miller gun-transportation revelations. They were playing like the #71 team over a 4-game span but over the final three games they played like the #2 team again. Over the last six that comes out to the #8 team, but they're basically back to normal again.
- Wins vs. tournament teams (14): =(7)Michigan St.+11, @(1)Houston+6, (8)Memphis+3, @(11)Mississippi St.+11, (6)Kentucky+26, @(8)Arkansas+15, @(7)Missouri+21, (11)Mississippi St.+3, @(9)Auburn+8, (8)Arkansas+3, (9)Auburn+OT, =(11)Mississippi St.+23, =(7)Missouri+11, =(7)Texas A&M+19
- Losses to tournament teams (4): =(4)Connecticut-15, (3)Gonzaga-10, @(4)Tennessee-9, @(7)Texas A&M-6
- Other losses (1): @Oklahoma-24
Overview: Everyone made such a big deal about Kansas and their 17 Quad One wins but in the end no one had more tournament-field wins than Alabama's 14 (Kansas had 16 it turns out). In the pre-SEC season the Tide beat 7-seed Michigan State, 1-seed Houston, and 8-seed Memphis while losing to 4-seed UConn and 3-seed Gonzaga. To be fair, this tally does could Mississippi State three times and they didn't make the final 64, so you could say the total is 11. Put an asterisk by it if you're a Kansas fan.
The Tide went 16-2 in the SEC, 19-2 if you count the conference tournament, only losing to 4-seed Tennessee and 7-seed Texas A&M on the road. The other loss along the way? A 93-69 beatdown by Oklahoma, a Big Twelve team that didn't make the Big Dance. It shows that even the best teams are vulnerable to any team ranked in the top 50 or so.
Freshman Brandon Miller is the team's star, averaging 19.6 points per game and 8.3 rebounds. Attention came his way due to a fatal shooting where it was revealed he had transported the murder weapon. Following this revelation the Tide played four very uncharacteristically poor games (games #28 to #31: they beat South Carolina in overtime, Arkansas by 3 at home, Auburn at home in overtime, and lost to Texas A&M 67-61) but Miller himself seemed unaffected, scoring a career high 41 in the first game. The guy has ice in his veins so don't expect the pressure of the NCAA tournament to get to him.
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- Wins vs. tournament teams (1): =(16)Southeast Missouri St.+4
- Losses to tournament teams (2): @(11)Mississippi St.-19, @(2)Arizona-38
- Other losses (8): =Cal St. Bakersfield-10, @UTEP-5, @UT Rio Grande Valley-7, @Oklahoma St.-23, Southeastern Louisiana-OT, @Lamar-2, @Houston Christian-12, Texas A&M Commerce-4
Overview: Texas A&M CC had three big wins in their first six games: they beat UTSA 75-55; UT Rio Grande Valley 97-75; and Alcorn State 98-67. They also had some early dismal losses: falling to 11-seed Mississippi State 63-44 (game 1), to Cal-Bakersfield 73-63 (game 5), and to 2-seed Arizona 99-61(game 10). The worst was probably game 20, a 90-78 loss to Houston Christian. Right after that they started a winning streak, winning 8 in a row, then another four in a row to win the Southland Conference, and finally they won the play-in game against Southeast Missouri State 75-71 and here we are.
TAMU-CC is led by Trevian Tennyson's 15.6 points a game; 2nd leading scorer Isaac Mushila (14.4) leads with 9.7 rebounds per game.
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Game Analysis: Why bother? I'm not going to pick against Alabama and neither are you. I will just mention their shooting defense: #3 against three-pointers and number 1 against 2-pointers. It's really hard to lock down one range let alone both of them. This makes them the #1 defense against the shot in the country per Pomeroy. For comparison, TAMU-CC is a very average shooting team, and that's against their awful schedule.
The game should be very fast-paced, combining the 4th fastest tempo team and the 85th fastest. When both are above-average that generally makes the game faster than either team's norm.
Vegas Line:
Alabama by 24
Power rating: spread
Alabama by 27.4
Game-comparisons: % Chance to win
Alabama: 94.1%
Texas A&M CC: 5.9%
The Strength power rating would agree exactly with Vegas if we didn't add home court advantage. Alabama is playing in-state and close to home and will have throngs of fans in the stands. TAMU-CC still has a 6% chance to win which seems to be normal for a 16-seed these days. It's like the 2-seed vs. 15-seed used to be.
Bottom line: I don't expect much resistance from TAMU-CC on Alabama's near-home court.
Final prediction: Alabama 92, Texas A&M CC 65
More previews: click here for the full 2023 NCAA tournament schedule.
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