With Dan Hurley's dalliance with the Los Angeles Lakers now ended, two-time defending national champion UConn remains the betting favorite to win a national championship in college basketball for the 2024-25 season. UConn has the nation's shortest odds on Caesars at +900, followed by two teams at +1100: Kansas and Alabama.
Such high expectations are likely uncharted territory for Tide basketball during any offseason of the program's existence. Alabama is a virtual lock as a top-five team in preseason polls this October, which would be a first for Alabama since the AP began its preseason poll in 1961.
It is a rare sight, too, in Tuscaloosa for the men's basketball team to have better national championship odds than the football team. In the first season of Kalen DeBoer as coach, the Tide has +1600 odds on Caesars to win a national title -- tied with Ole Miss as fifth-shortest in the country.
Fueling Alabama's rise to the top in basketball hasa roster that returns three of its top five scorers from last season's Final Four team, then added four veteran players through the transfer portal to supplement the nation's No. 2 high school recruiting class. Consulting coach Nate Oats and his staff over the past three years on personnel decisions, especially through the portal, has been former professional baseball pitcher Michael Schwimer, who runs a sports analytics firm Big League Advantage that even provides Oats data during games.
DENNIS DODD:Meet the 'secret weapon' in Alabama's Final Four run: Analytics guru Michael Schwimer has many roles for Tide
During an appearance last week on Tide 100.9, Schwimer celebrated the success of Alabama in building its roster this offseason. In addition to adding center Clifford Omoruyi and guards Aden Holloway, Chris Youngblood and Houston Mallette through the portal, Alabama also benefitted from decisions by Mark Sears and Jarin Stevenson to withdraw from the NBA draft after Grant Nelson and Latrell Wrightsell also came back for fifth seasons.
"Did we run the table, or did we run the table?" Schwimer told host Ryan Fowler last Monday. "We got our center, we got Sears, we got Jarin back. A lot of the question marks came up Tide."
The end result is Alabama being widely picked as a top-three team in the country, with some projecting the Tide as preseason No. 1. For Schwimer -- who also works with Duke and will soon add a Big Ten school -- his data projections support Alabama not only as the best team this upcoming season, but one of the best teams in college basketball over the past two decades.
"It's taken us three years, but man, this team that we've built -- last year, let's just be honest, we got there but we were a little early. We got to the Final Four and it was amazing -- we certainly exceeded expectations with that roster," Schwimer told Tide 100.9. "Now this year, this is the No. 1 team in the country. By our models -- and look, the game is not played on paper, anything can happen with injuries -- but we're looking at, from a pure model perspective, the third best team in the last 20 years in all of basketball. That's the roster he's been able to build. I'm super excited about it."
That takes into account Schwimer's projected points per possession metrics for both offense and defense. In fact, Schwimer's data suggests Alabama's second wave of players -- the five players on the court after its starters -- could field a team that finishes in the top five of the SEC.
"I think the second unit we had, from a points per possession on offense and points per possession unit on defense projection, I think it's a fourth- or fifth-best team in the SEC," he said. "So we have the best team and the fourth or fifth best team, and they're on the same team. I can't overstate the depth that this roster has enough."
Schwimer believes it is the deepest roster the program has ever seen, with 12 players who could see "big, big, big minutes."
"This team -- it's really astonishing what Oats has been able to do," he told Fowler. "And really, the level of competition. Every player is coming in, competing for minutes. And he will play a deep rotation. This will be a team that -- what do they say in football, Blitz Bama Blitz? This will be the basketball version of that. They are going to be running teams out of the gym with how fast they play. If you're used to Alabama and how fast it's been in years past, this team is gonna break records because of how deep we are.
"I think that's going to be really exciting. I think margin of victory has a chance to set records."
Of course, this is only June. Only one AP preseason No. 1 team in the past eight seasons has advanced to the Final Four. That was Gonzaga in 2020-21.
"The team has to come together," Schwimer acknowledged to Fowler. "There's a leadership component. Everything I've told you is model-able from our analytics engine on paper. Now of course the players have to execute the system that Oats wants them to run because there are a lot of new faces, but we are extremely confident that is going to happen."
If it does, watch out, Schwimer says.
"If you're listening to this and you wish you could watch 2020 Alabama football or 2009 Alabama football again -- 'I wish I could just go back and watch this team play' -- this is the feeling you're going to have come 2027," he said. "You're going to be talking about that 2024-25 Alabama team and I wish I could watch a few more games of that team, because it's going to be special."
In the age of NIL, Oatshas constructed his rosters by selling his NBA-style system and a growing track record of producing NBA players from it.
"Alabama basketball, it doesn't have as much NIL as other schools in the SEC," Schwimer told Tide 100.9. "How do they get players? Well, the system. There is no better NBA-ready system than the path through Tuscaloosa. If you're a recruit, if you're a transfer and you have dreams about being an NBA player, look what he's done.
"Just about every single player on this roster has turned down more money from other schools to come to Alabama. You want to ask how valuable that [data-focused system] is? That's the answer. Watch this team play. We go 12 deep. Watch this team play this year and that will answer your question on how valuable this is. The college basketball world is in for a treat when watching this team perform."
