The bracket supports the bias.
They say the Sweet 16 is the beginning of a new tournament. Hopefully that’s true for Alabama. The Crimson Tide played five teams still alive in the NCAA Tournament. Against teams still dancing this March, the Crimson Tide is 0-6 this season.
Not great.
Alabama has no chance against North Carolina, in other words, so let’s just get that out of the way first.
That’s the prevailing theme here at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles, host metropolis of Nick Saban’s final game as coach of the Alabama football team and now, a few months later, the city where Alabama basketball will take on blue-blooded North Carolina on Thursday in the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament.
Alabama wasn’t playing up to its potential at the end of the regular season and then went out early in the SEC tournament. After everything we’ve seen, though, I’m not so sure this is the same Alabama team that stepped meekly into the NCAA Tournament.
Put it this way. Has North Carolina played a game in this NCAA Tournament anywhere close to Alabama’s Throw Down of the Second Round? Not even close.
Advantage Alabama? Maybe so.
There was Alabama before that doggedly physical game against Grand Canyon and there is Alabama after surviving that fight to the death. For Alabama to have a chance at the upset against North Carolina, that statement of hope needs to be closer to a transformative fact.
No one here thinks Alabama is going to be around for long, but the underdog role might suit this team perfectly after its no-holds-barred battle in the Round of 32. Game time for four-seed Alabama (23-11) and one-seed North Carolina (29-7) is set for around 8:39 p.m. CT, or 30 minutes after the finish of the West Region’s first game of the day. That’d be Clemson vs. Arizona. The winners of the two games will then meet on Saturday, and pretty much everyone not wearing crimson and white gear out here on the West Coast expects UNC and ‘Zona to be the teams squaring off in the Elite Eight.
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