Alabama, the No. 1 seed in the South region of the 2023 NCAA tournament, will play No. 16 seed Texas A&M-Corpus Christi on Thursday.

The Islanders defeated Southeast Missouri State, 75-71, in a play-in game Tuesday night in Dayton, Ohio.

Thursday’s first-round game will begin at 1:45 p.m. CT in Birmingham’s Legacy Arena, following the 11:15 a.m. CT game between No. 8 seed Maryland and No. 9 seed West Virginia. Both contests will be televised by CBS and their top announcing team of Jim Nantz, Bill Raftery, Grant Hill and Tracy Wolfson.

“[Alabama is] really, really talented,” Texas A&M-Corpus Christi coach Steve Lutz told TruTV after Tuesday’s win. “We faced Arizona earlier in the year. Very similar in terms of they can really score points. We’re not gonna be able to score 77 points and win. You’re gonna have to get 80-plus to beat them. Super talented, well coached.”

This is the third NCAA tournament appearance for Corpus Christi since it joined Division I in 2002. It made the tournament as a No. 15 seed in 2007, losing to No. 2 seed Wisconsin in the first round. It also qualified for the tournament last year, losing a No. 16 seed play-in game to Texas Southern.

Texas A&M-Corpus Christi (24-10, 14-4) won both the Southland Conference regular-season title and tournament title this season.

Nate Oats addressed both potential first-round opponents during his weekly “Hey Coach” radio show Monday evening.

“They’re both good programs,” Oats said. “You don’t make the NCAA tournament without being good. Corpus Christi won their league. SEMO made a run in the tournament, made it. They both play fast, which is good and bad. It’s good because obviously we’ve got more talent than them — we’re the No. 1 overall seed and they’re the No. 16 seed — when you’ve got more talent, you like to have more possessions.

“So it’s good that hopefully — if either one of them tries to slow it down, that’s not really how they play. So we’d like to [play] fast ourselves, plus we’re the more talented team, so that’s good. The one bad thing is, they could get going up and down and maybe get loose a little bit, because they can shoot some threes.”

Mike Rodak is an Alabama beat reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @mikerodak.