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FSU Basketball: A FSU Fan's Guide to The Final Four

FSU Basketball fans, come with me on an Odyssey of the NCAA Tournament's remaining contenders. We will look through the program's history, the team's performance this season, and the tournament's storylines as we create vested interests for ourselves to make these last six games all the more entertaining.

By Cole Maines

Zach Edey of the Purdue Boilermakers in action against the Tennessee Volunteers
Zach Edey of the Purdue Boilermakers in action against the Tennessee Volunteers / SOPA Images/GettyImages
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Alabama Men

Alabama Basketball is not nearly the juggernaut that they are in football as this is their first final-four appearance in program history. They are strong in the SEC, with 12 regular-season conference championships and nine conference tournament championships.

This has been since their inception in 1912, a quick 21 years after James Naismith invented the game in 1891. Since the Crimson Tide's early debut, they have 25 NCAA tournament appearances but had only made it as far as the Elite Eight prior to this season.

In the modern era, the higher-ups in Alabama seemed to have emphasized building their basketball program to compete at a higher level in the SEC. This seems to also coincide with the slight decline of rivals like Kentucky as Alabama has had two SEC regular season and conference tournament championships in the last four years.

This season was a slight step down from the regular season as they had a 25-11 record but performed well in conference with a 13-5 record, sitting just one game off of first-place Tennessee. Unable to see confetti fall in the conference tournament due to a sizable loss to Florida, Alabama still got a favorable four seed.

Getting favorable matchups in the first two rounds was key for the Tide as they beat their first opponents by more than ten points each. After that, they upset North Carolina by two points in the Sweet Sixteen to face Clemson who was on a similar run as a sixth seed.

Topping the Tigers by seven, Alabama set a date with repeat threats UConn for this weekend. As rooting interests go for the Noles, I hope the Tide is stemmed.

It's nothing against Alabama, but they are also a do-not-root. They were complicit if not directly involved in the CFP snub and were the largest benefactor of it. I understand this is basketball and not football, but I can't root for anything Alabama, especially post-snub.

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