First up, check out this video from the main Alabama Basketball Twitter account:
If that doesn’t get you hyped up about the end of the hoops regular season, I don’t know what will. Roll Tide!
After taking down Auburn to close the season strong, Alabama jumped back up the AP polls by a few spots:
Alabama closed the regular season in a huge way, going on the road to No. 1 Auburn and knocking off the Tigers with a game-winning buzzer beater in overtime from star guard Mark Sears. The win gave the Crimson Tide a 1-1 record on the week after falling to then-No. 5 Florida on Wednesday, and in the newest AP Poll, Alabama rose two spots to No. 5.
It’s the final poll before postseason play begins for the Crimson Tide, with the SEC Tournament beginning this Wednesday. Alabama has a double-bye to the quarterfinal round on Friday, and with seven teams ranked in the AP Poll, it could run into a ranked team every round of the tournament.
Those ranked SEC teams include No. 3 Auburn, No. 4 Florida, No. 5 Alabama, No. 8 Tennessee, No. 14 Texas A&M, No. 15 Kentucky and No. 21 Missouri.
The Tide is pretty much a shoe-in as a #2 seed in the NCAA tournament, but the right performance in the SEC tournament could very well vault them to a #1 seed.
Florida is currently the final consensus No. 1 seed on BracketMatrix.com, while Tennessee is the second-highest No. 2 seed. Alabama could meet the Gators in the semifinals of the SEC tournament, while Tennessee is a possible opponent for Alabama in the championship game Sunday. In either case, Alabama could avenge an earlier loss to both teams and prompt the NCAA tournament selection committee to consider the Tide as a No. 1 seed.
While Alabama fans have been generally melting down about their QB play for a couple of years, CBS sports suddenly lists the Tide as the “Deepest QB Room” in the country:
1. Alabama
Key players: Ty Simpson, Austin Mack, Keelon Russell
The Crimson Tide may have been down in 2024, but Alabama is coming into 2025 with the most impressive quarterback competition in the nation. Mack was well regarded when coach Kalen DebBoer recruited him to Washington, and he opted to follow DeBoer to Tuscaloosa. Simpson was a five-star who waited three years for his opportunity. The wild card is Russell, an early-enrollee who ranked as the No. 2 overall player in the Top247 out of Duncanville, Texas. While the group lacks starting snaps, the sheer amount of talent and practice experience makes it the envy of the nation.
In a lot of cases, teams with an established starting QB often don’t have the best group of backups. For Alabama, the Tide has three guys who were all very highly rated recruits, and Simpson in particular has 4 years of college experience.
For whatever you think it’s worth, Greg McElroy has been hyping Simpson up:
“One thing that I’ve been really interested in with Ty Simpson is how does he develop as a leader?” Said McElroy. “I was told by the staff two years ago that he was the best quarterback on the roster. The problem is at that point, there were some things that needed to be ironed out with his own confidence. What he could get away with, what he can do at this level, what he can’t do at this level. The other thing that I think they’ve found out with this staff is that he’s a little more mobile, a little more athletic than people realized, and he can be a factor in the quarterback run game if needed. But with the upgrades at wide receiver, the advancement of Ryan Williams going into his second year, Germie Bernard as his number two wide receiver, him being another year in the system there in Tuscaloosa, and with an addition or two in the portal, this group might be poised to break out. Ty Simpson, as an accurate drop-back passer to keep you honest with his legs, might be the perfect guy to run the offense.”
From what I’ve seen, I mostly agree with Greg. Ty has impressive running skills, but his internal clock and timing haven’t seemed to match college speed in the few games we’ve seen him. We’ll see where that goes this off-season.
With NFL free agency madness starting up yesterday, there’s been a number of former Alabama players to make headlines. So far we have:
The real takeaway from all of this is that Jim Harbaugh must have always secretly loved him some Nick Saban. And it is pretty funny that, after all these years, Najee Harris is finally playing for Harbaugh.
