re: Where did the Alabama basketball arrogance come from?

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It's also the time of day I am on your mind. You told the same joke idk how many times begging me to bite.

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Probably told it twice and had a bite today. I’m good with that percentage.

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Is that really true, they don't give that vibe at all to me.

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Some people on this board might, most that I know do not

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I feel like that is more the random sidewalk fan that hears the basketball team might be good. He/She watches a few games during the year and checks some box scores. He/She complains at the end of the year about not being great and stops caring till the team starts getting hype again.

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Yes, exactly, and they are the ones that really just want to use basketball to troll rivals or talk shite.

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I don't know about others but I think we are very much a middle of the pack SEC program.

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Agreed. 7th in the SEC out of 14.

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I think you ranking is pretty much dead on.

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Good. So why would you expect Bama to go to the Tournament 67% of the time when no team but Kentucky has averaged that since 1975? The Tournament expanded to 32 teams in '75, so its a decent starting point when talking about NCAA Tournament history. Since '75, here is the percentage of seasons each program has made the Big Dance (included are all officially vacated appearances for all programs):

86.0%- Kentucky (37/43)
62.8%- Arkansas (27/43)
58.1%- Missouri (25/43)
46.5%- Florida (20/43)
46.5%- Alabama (20/43)
44.2%- LSU (19/43)
44.2%- Tennessee (19/43)
27.9%- Georgia (12/43)
20.9%- Miss. St. (10/43)
18.6%- Auburn (9/43)
18.6%- Ole Miss (9/43)
11.6%- South Carolina (5/43)

My point in all this is that Bama fans have way too high of expectations if they think a coach should be getting them to the NCAA Tournament 2 out of every 3 seasons. That far exceeds Bama's historical appearance rate and it even exceeds a program like Arkansas' rate of appearing in the Tournament.

Bama basketball is not much different than LSU or Tennessee... yet for some reason Bama basketball fans seem like they have much higher expectations.

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Alabama's been to 20 NCAA tournaments. How do the other SEC teams not named Kentucky stack up against that?

Tennessee-20
LSU-21
Georgia-12
Vandy-15
Florida-20

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If you think this is supposed to be some type of "gotcha" comeback you're mistaken. I'm not espousing Georgia basketball to be something it isn't... despite the fact we made a Final 4 right smack in the middle of the Wimp Sanderson era, I'm not pretending that's the norm for UGA basketball.

But to get back to your point...

Florida is 2 National Titles and 5 Final 4 appearances.
LSU has 4 Final Four appearances

Tennessee and Alabama are nearly identical in their basketball accomplishments, though Tennessee is a hair above since technically Bama had to vacate one of their Tourney appearances and actually have just 19.

Bama is the 7th best Basketball program in the SEC. That's great, but its a far lower ranking than what Bama basketball fans try to make of it on these boards. You all act as if Bama has a much richer basketball history and you simply don't.

Glad someone else recognizes this. Alabama basketball fans are by far the most reasonable amongst the 4 or 5 sports we truly care about (football, basketball, baseball, softball, and women's gymnastics). We know our ceiling as well as our limitations as a program and the vast majority of us know we're quite a few levels below Arkansas and Florida and our ceiling as a program is lower than LSU historically. It's just annoying to hear someone describe a program ranked in the Top 31 all time in wins and winning % as a shitty program that had one solid 10 year run under one coach when all the facts don't back that up. The only Bama fans trying to say we're on Arkansas, Florida, or even LSU's level historically are clearly trolls. The vast majority of Bama fans that care about basketball know that's not the case. However, to be lectured by a Georgia fan (probably the single biggest underachiever in the SEC in basketball historically given their recruiting area) for basketball is beyond annoying.

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1974 : #14 AP, 22-4 (15-3), 8th SRS rankings, NIT

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no. Unfortunately since they hosted the Mideast Regional the NCAA did not allow them to go to the NIT. Same fate happened to Vanderbilt in 1973.

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I made it pretty clear above. Have a good coach, make the NCAAT more than you don't.

Have a bad coach, be a perennial 18-13 NIT team.

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Again, I think you are putting too much weight on a brief era of success. You are correct in that CM Newton had some good years despite very few NCAA Tournament appearances... but I think you inflate Godfrey's success simply because he eaked into the Tournament on several occasions and made one deep run to the Elite 8.

Aside from CM Newton and Wimp, Bama basketball is consistently right around .500... very rarely finishing more than 1 game below or above that mark.

Since 1993, Bama is 219-210 in SEC play... and it doesn't matter who the coach is, Bama is been right around .500 overall.

David Hobbs was 50-46 in SEC play from 1993-1998
Mark Gottfried was 89-89 in SEC play from 1999-2009
Anthony Grant was 54-48 in SEC play from 2010-2015
Avery Johnson is 26-27 in SEC play from 2016-2018

The real anomaly lies with CM Newton's 1972 team up through Wimp Sanderson's 1992 team. During the course of those 21 seasons, Bama was a very impressive 251-167.

But prior to that, Bama basketball was lacking that type of success. For the 37 years prior to Newton's first great year, Bama was 314-271... decent, but averaging again just about a game above .500 each year.

Bama's SEC Winning Percentage:
1933-1971 (37 years): 53.7%
1972-1992 (21 years): 60.0%
1993-2018 (26 years): 51.0%

Aside from CM Newton and Wimp's 21 years of basketball success, Bama being right around .500 in SEC play is pretty normal.... its been more than a quarter century since Bama basketball was consistently attending the Big Dance... which is now much longer in time than when Bama was very strong from 1972-1992.

I just think Bama fans have just a bit too high of expectations for their basketball program. That's great an all, but its not based on reality.

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You are correct in that CM Newton had some good years despite very few NCAA Tournament appearances... but I think you inflate Godfrey's success simply because he eaked into the Tournament on several occasions and made one deep run to the Elite 8.

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But the argument is for us to make the tournament. That's it. We're not telling you we "expect" anything past that. Gottfried made 6 of them in a row before he collapsed.

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I just think Bama fans have just a bit too high of expectations for their basketball program. That's great an all, but its not based on reality.

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And I don't think expecting a coach to come in and average 20 wins and make the NCAAT more than he doesn't is an unrealistic/unfair expectation to have.

And if that means we hire 20 more coaches, give them 4 years and they fail to meet that goal, so be it. I have no problem with that. We don't expect guys to turn things around in year 1. We give guys time to sign players and build. But after 3-4 years if they haven't done it then it's time to try again.

I don't feel that is unfair in the least and have no qualms about it.

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BHMKyle

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Jesus Christ, Kyle. Cry some more, please.