The advanced stats have liked Alabama basketball all year, even when its win-loss record wasn’t the greatest. But following a run atop the Southeastern Conference standings, the NCAA Tournament selection committee rewarded the Crimson Tide with a 3-seed in its March Madness preview.

UA was the No. 9 overall seed. In this forecast, Alabama would be slotted in the Dallas regional with No. 1 Houston, No. 2 Marquette and No. 4 Illinois. Selection Sunday is four weeks from tomorrow. A year ago, Alabama maintained its top spot for the first-ever true No. 1 ranking in school history.

The Tide (17-7, 9-2) opened the season with four-straight buy-game wins, picking up what would turn out to be a quality win over Indiana State in November. However, with a mostly new roster and three new assistants, Nate Oats and co. lost two of its next seven: a rare home loss to Ohio State; a neutral site defeat against Oregon; and a trio of road games against preseason title contenders Purdue (No. 1 overall), Creighton and Arizona (No. 4).

While Alabama’s offensive efficiency metrics ranked among the best in the nation, per sites like KenPom and BartTorvik, Oats recognized a lack of defensive consistency. UA tweaked its coaching assignments, with Oats now linking playing time to defensive effort. The Tide opened 2024 with four-straight conference wins, and after faltering at Tennessee, Alabama had its biggest win to date, at home, against rival Auburn.

Alabama had slipped out of the Associated Press Top 25 and USA Today Coaches polls, but climbed back in after beating the Tigers. UA long kept a favorable spot in the NET rankings, however, a tool directly used by the selection committee — of which Tide athletic director Greg Byrne is a member.

“It shows where you’ve gotten the program to,” Oats said Friday ahead of the reveal. “Wherever we end up being, and I would assume we would be somewhere in the 16, still got a month of basketball left before Selection Sunday. … I’ll find out after the game and then from there, you got to try and improve your seeding.”

Alabama has one game against a top-16 seed left on its regular-season schedule. It’ll rematch Tennesse in Coleman on March 2. UA’s last loss came at No. 13 overall seed Auburn on Feb. 7.

Nick Alvarez is a reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @nick_a_alvarez or email him at [email protected].