re: 2017-18 Alabama Basketball Season Thread: 20-16 (10-11)

ESPN BPI has Alabama a 43.5% chance to win on Tuesday.

Teamrankings has us with a 79.9% chance of getting in. 58.8% chance with 18 wins.

Does 1 conference tournament win actually make a difference? I have read in the past that the committee has a good idea of what the field will look like before conference tournaments even start and they just bump a few teams if there are champions who otherwise wouldn't have made it as at large bids.

Bottom line, we need to finish 4-4 in our last 8 games and get to 19 wins. It's doable provided we don't totally shite the bed against LSU and Arkansas at home, which means it will actually be a huge challenge.

Jerry Palm before Sat's game 11 seed:

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That third team is Alabama. The Crimson Tide is relying largely on two highly regarded freshmen in Collin Sexton and John Petty , so it is no surprise that consistency is hard to come by. The Tide have been something of a home court hero in that all of their best wins have come on the home floor. The most recent of those was against Oklahoma on Saturday in the SEC-Big 12 challenge. However, they also have three home losses to teams that they should be able to beat. Missouri knocked them off at Coleman Coliseum on Thursday night and that has pushed Alabama down the bracket again.

Alabama is only 1-4 on the road, with that win coming at LSU on Jan. 13. The Crimson Tide have a very daunting schedule ahead of them that includes four out of six on the road. Three of those road opponents are Florida, Auburn and Kentucky. One of the two home games is against Tennessee. Alabama is going to have to navigate this part of the schedule well or the Tide may fall off the bracket entirely.

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whoops

Like you said earlier SOG, if we are at 18 wins, bid stealers will play a major role.

Right now I think there could be quite a few of those.

A-10: URI is in at-large
C-USA: Maybe MTSU and/or Western Kentucky at-large
Mountain West: Nevada and possibly Boise State at-large
West Coast: Gonzaga and Saint Mary's
American: UCF is out right now and the conference tournament is in Orlando
B1G and Pac12: Only have 3-4 teams in right now, so they could easily have a 4th placed team take a bid by winning the conference tournament.

I don't see bids being lost anywhere else. I think New Mexico State, Louisiana, and Loyola-Chicago probably wouldn't get at-large bids. In the SEC, ACC, Big East, and Big 12, a bottom third team would have to make a run to win a conference tournament.

Thanks for the schedule. We are 5-7 when I watch Bama BKBall. Turning in my remote.

Right now Petty has been playing somewhere between "Bad Rodney Cooper and "Good Mychail Riley"

It's bad, but it's not surprising that he'd be bad on the road. All he wants to do is shoot 3s and outside shooting in unfamiliar gyms is often a struggle, especially for young players. He's just such a godawful ball handler that I'm not sure he will ever be much more than a 3pt specialist.

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Nice play design

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It's simple, but beautiful. Will work everytime if they consistently switch on picks. Sexton draws the roll defender, the help defender is forced to choose between allowing an easy roll finish for Hall or a wide open three for Key. Defender correctly chooses to help on Hall, but results in an open 3 for Key. There's absolutely nothing the defense can do to avoid it if it's pulled off correctly. This is what excites me for the future with Avery. The offensive sets and plays are there, we just don't have the consistent shooting to pull it off. I've mentioned this before, but I think we've had more open 3pt opportunities this year than I've ever seen in the past. Part of it is play design and part of it is defenses sinking in to stop the penetration, but regardless the offense will explode once we start shooting consistently as a team.