🏀 Final Four picks from the national media. What's yours?

[TerryP]

 

[TerryP]

Musselman is making light of Seth taking Colgate over Arkansas. Seth has Bama in his Final Four.

 

[mando]

Shocked in at least a couple of things from Brando, 1) he said anything positive about Bama and 2) he did not pick LSU to win it all.

 

[TerryP]

Musselman is making light of Seth taking Colgate over Arkansas.

SEC Now: Colgate is averaging nine 3's per game, 17 - 10 assist to turnover ratio.
Arkansas:
162½u -112
-9½ -110

 

[1CrimsonTider]

 

[mando]

Talk about PAC-12 west coast homer.

 

[1CrimsonTider]

4of 5 from USA Today pick Bama in FF.

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[TerryP]

4of 5 from USA Today pick Bama in FF.

5 of 7 pick Bama to Final Four on CBS with one having the Tide winning it all.

Chip Patterson, College basketball writer

Click to enlarge Patterson's bracket

Predicted champion: Alabama

The Crimson Tide play at a relentless pace, shoot a ton of threes and defend at an elite level. In an NCAA Tournament that may be mentally exhausting at times because of the strict protocol and bubble-ish existence in Indiana, the last opponent you want to face is Alabama. The Tide want to run, get up in your face on defense and can change the fortunes of a game in three minutes or less if they get hot from 3-point range or force a couple quick turnovers. It's a blue-collar team that welcomes the grind, and that mentality will pay off during the ups and downs of an unprecedented NCAA Tournament.

2021 NCAA Tournament bracket predictions: March Madness picks, Sweet 16, favorites to win, upsets, winners

Check out our experts' picks and predictions for the 2021 March Madness bracket

www.cbssports.com

 

[mando]

Sure is a lot different than the past several years. Hope they live up to the hype but it is going to be hard to.

 

[Bama Guy]

Regardless, I sure enjoy watching them play.

 

[TerryP]

So wild seeing so many final four projections. There's a lot of respect out their for this team.

 

[mando]

Setting the team up for disappointment if they do not make it far into the tournament. Hard for me to see going year after year missing the tournament and then being able to make a deep run. I think the D gives them a chance but the inconsistency on offense (points and turnovers) puts them at risk of exiting much earlier. I do think they started playing better and had the refuse to lose mentality in the SEC tournament. Will that be enough to get this deep into the tournament? Hard for me to see it but would love it if they did.

 

[Sid Youngleman]

5 of 7 pick Bama to Final Four on CBS with one having the Tide winning it all.

Some people are just resistant to the idea of having a national champion that sounds like a pizza topping. ("OK, gimme a large hand-tossed with sausage, mushrooms and gonzaga.")

 

[252BAMA]

Final Four lifetime dream so close I can touch it! You would have to have been around in 1976 to understand. Bama would have been NC that year if not for one of the worst calls in CBB history. Had Indiana beat in the Sweet 16 but had it taken away. Mark Bradley wrote a column ten years later in 1986 in the AJC titled 'The Five Worst Calls in CBB History'. The charge call on Leon Douglas at the end of the Indiana game was one of the Five. Ten Years After!

 

[ElephantStomp]

Setting the team up for disappointment if they do not make it far into the tournament. Hard for me to see going year after year missing the tournament and then being able to make a deep run. I think the D gives them a chance but the inconsistency on offense (points and turnovers) puts them at risk of exiting much earlier. I do think they started playing better and had the refuse to lose mentality in the SEC tournament. Will that be enough to get this deep into the tournament? Hard for me to see it but would love it if they did.

You just might be the most negative, Debbie downer fan of any team I’ve ever seen man.

 

[ElephantStomp]

My Final Four:

Gonzaga
Bama
Baylor
Illinois

Zags win the NC

 

[mando]

You just might be the most negative, Debbie downer fan of any team I’ve ever seen man.

So saying it is hard for me to see this program doing something that has never done at bama is a downer? Saying they have a great D but inconsistencies on offense put them at risk is a downer? Most of that is fact the hard to see part certainly is an opinion.

Man I am a huge fan and will be pulling hard for this team every step of the way. It has been sad to see where the basketball program had gotten. I always knew they could be better than they were because I had seen it especially under Wimp. No one has seen these type of expectations for Bama Basketball. I hope they have great success in the tournament.

 

[252BAMA]

More on 1976 which should be the bar this Bama team is attempting to reach.

There were but 32 teams in the NCAAT that year and IMO only two (UNC and IU) were even capable of competing with Bama. Before the tournament began all the talking heads were pointing to the Sweet 16 match-up between those two as the Game of The Year. Never happened. Bama ran UNC off the court in the first round of 32.

Most everyone knows that IU was an undefeated NC but few remember that later that year UNC would have their HC (Dean Smith) and FOUR of their players (Phil Ford, Mitch Kupchak, Walter Davis, and Tom LaGarde) wearing 1976 Olympic Basketball Gold Medals. Bama beat them by 15 to get to the S16.

 

[bama alum]

My Final Four:

Gonzaga
Bama
Baylor
Illinois

Zags win the NC

I haven't completed mine yet, but I have Illinois beating Zaga. I'm not too sure about Baylor yet.

 

[252BAMA]

They say if your Final Four seeds total less than seven, you don't have a shot. But it has already been explained very clearly that history doesn't mean chit. Mine total five.

2 Alabama
1 Baylor
1 Gonzaga
1 Illinois