As the regular season in men’s college basketball approaches its end, the NCAA tournament field has seemingly begun to take shape.
Alabama men’s basketball has likely cemented its place in the tournament after just missing the NCAA’s reveal of its current top-16 seeds on Saturday. The team is in the midst of a historic run in March, reaching the Final Four, the Elite Eight in back-to-back seasons and the Sweet 16 in three consecutive years.
Here is everything Crimson Tide fans should know ahead of a potential sixth straight tourney trip.
Break out the brackets
Millions of college basketball fans fill out brackets yearly. A record 24.4 million brackets were filled out in ESPN’s Men’s Tournament Challenge last season, as fans aimed to predict the field of 68 perfectly.
After one day of NCAA tournament action in 2025, just 25,802 brackets remained perfect. The last perfect bracket standing fell after 3-seed Kentucky toppled 6-seed Illinois in the 43rd game of the tourney. The longest-standing perfect bracket, authored by neuropsychologist Gregg Nigl, accurately predicted the 2019 tourney’s first 49 games before 3-seed Purdue downed 2-seed Tennessee in the Sweet 16.
Nigl said in 2024 that his historic bracket run was “pretty much all luck.”
He mostly picked teams he had never watched before, but correctly predicted four first-round upsets.
Draft prospects galore
This year’s NCAA tournament will feature several high-level NBA draft prospects, including Alabama star guard Labaron Philon Jr., who was mocked 10th overall to the Toronto Raptors by CBS Sports writer Kyle Boone. Philon has soared up draft boards since he returned to school in May 2025, averaging 21.3 points per game on 50.3% shooting.
He was named to the Naismith Trophy Men’s College Player of the Year Late-Season Team on Sunday.
BYU star forward AJ Dybantsa and Kansas star guard Darryn Peterson have topped draft boards for much of the season, with the latter mocked No. 1 by Boone in his latest edition mock draft. Dybantsa leads Division I in scoring with 24.9 points per game, and Peterson has notched 19.8 points per game on just 27.2 minutes per game, compared to Dybantsa’s 33.7 minutes per game.
Arkansas guard Darius Acuff Jr. thrust himself into the NBA draft lottery conversation after his 49-point performance in a 117-115 loss to Alabama on Feb. 18.
“He’s unique and special, and I would imagine everybody saw it today,” Razorbacks head coach John Calipari said postgame.
SEC in position for double-digit bids
The SEC, after receiving a historic 13 bids in 2025, could receive a second straight double-digit contingent in the Big Dance. Renowned bracketologist Joe Lunardi projected 11 SEC teams in his Tuesday bracket update. He also placed the Crimson Tide as a 4-seed, after the team missed the selection committee’s initial reveal in favor of Vanderbilt, which Lunardi placed on the 5-seed line.
While the Charles Bediako eligibility saga could potentially impact how the selection committee will view Alabama, Lunardi shot down any suspicion of punishment from the NCAA in its bracket.
“Every committee member can vote on and evaluate however they wish,” Lunardi said. “The reality, though, if you try and compare it to situations in the past is it’s bad luck for Auburn. Just like a call at the end of a game, where the league steps in and says, ‘The officials made a mistake.’ Well, they don’t take the loss away, it’s just something the committee would have to weigh.”
The 2026 NCAA tournament field will be revealed on March 15, and the tournament will begin on March 17. It will conclude in Indianapolis with the national championship game on April 4.
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