The NCAA Tournament works in mysterious ways. Alabama seemingly had a real opportunity to go to the Final Four with a loaded roster in 2021, and the Crimson Tide earned the No. 1 overall seed in 2023. They bowed out in the Sweet 16 both years.
With Brandon Miller off to the NBA and a troublesome defense plaguing Alabama down the stretch this season, expectations for a deep March Madness run were decisively lower than they were a year ago. All Nate Oats' group has done ever since is prove doubters wrong.
Oats and the Crimson Tide are Final Four-bound after a regional run that included an upset of No. 1 North Carolina. If Alabama wants to reach the pinnacle, however, it will require a win over the most dominant team in the country.
Here's a look at Alabama basketball's championship history entering the Final Four.
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Alabama basketball championship history
Has Alabama ever won a national championship?
Alabama has never won a national championship in men's basketball.
Of course, it wouldn't be fair to say the Tide have a long-suffering fan base. What the school has lacked on the basketball court has more than been made up for on the football field, where Alabama has been a powerhouse for the past 16 years.
If one major sport can be so successful in Tuscaloosa, though, why can't another? Oats raised the expectations for the program when he arrived from Buffalo in 2019, and he's already taken Alabama to the NCAA Tournament three more times than each of his two predecessors.
This year's run might be remove some of the sting from Alabama's early exit in 2023. The Tide were the No. 1 overall seed, entering the NCAA Tournament at 29-5 with freshman standout Brandon Miller leading the way alongside Mark Sears, Jahvon Quinerly, and Noah Clowney. Alabama coasted to the Sweet 16, only to see their fast pace get disrupted by a slower, more defensive-focused San Diego State team.
It's hard to win in March with a poor defense, which made the idea of a Final Four run so unlikely this year. Alabama allowed more than 100 points in three of its last seven games before the tournament, and the Tide held their opponent under 80 points just once in their last 10 games leading up to the tournament.
So far, the defense has been good enough and the offense has continued to click. To do something never before done in program history and leave Arizona with a national championship, everything will have to be firing on all cylinders this weekend.
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When was Alabama's last Final Four appearance?
The elation expressed by Oats and everyone else within the program after Alabama's Elite Eight win over Clemson was for a good reason. This is the first-ever Final Four appearance for the Crimson Tide.
Alabama has 11 Sweet 16 appearances in program history but has only advanced to the Elite Eight twice, including 2024.
While Purdue and NC State snapped decades-long droughts by reaching this year's Final Four, Alabama is the only team making its first Final Four appearance.
What was Alabama's best March Madness finish?
Alabama's best March Madness finish before this year came in 2004, when the Tide reached the Elite Eight.
Like this season, Alabama didn't enter the 2004 NCAA Tournament with expectations of a particularly deep run. The Tide were a No. 8 seed with a 17-12 record, and they narrowly survived a battle with No. 9 Southern Illinois in the first round before upsetting No. 1 Stanford in the second round.
Alabama punched its ticket to the Elite Eight with a Sweet 16 victory over Syracuse, but the eventual champion UConn Huskies proved to be too much of a challenge for Mark Gottfried's squad with a Final Four berth on the line.
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Alabama was led by Kennedy Winston in 2004, with Earnest Shelton the only other member of the roster to average more than 15 points per game. Only one player from the team, Jermareo Davidson, reached the NBA.
UConn again stands in the way of Alabama two decades later, but this time, the game will be played in front of more than 70,000 fans and the entire basketball world watching.
