The now top-five ranked Alabama Crimson Tide Men’s Basketball team will face yet another difficult matchup tomorrow afternoon, this time against #15 Gonzaga in Birmingham. Alabama defeated Gonzaga last season in Seattle. After taking down #1 Houston on the road last weekend, the Crimson Tide had a somewhat tough time with a talented Memphis team at Coleman Coliseum on Tuesday night, but ultimately did enough to get the win.
The Gonzaga matchup marks the final blue blood matchup for the Crimson Tide in their gauntlet of a non-conference schedule. They have fared extremely well thus far, only losing to UCONN and taking down Michigan State, UNC, and Houston. They will face Jackson State at home as well before beginning their difficult SEC schedule in less than two weeks.
Alabama received some bad news right before the Memphis game when they announced that Nimari Burnett, who has been a solid scorer and perhaps their best on-ball defender, will be out 6-8 weeks with a wrist injury that he had surgery for. This team however is much deeper than last year’s, so we’ll see if their depth can carry them through this.
Similar to Houston last week, Gonzaga will be looking for revenge after losing to Alabama last season. Time will tell if Mark Few and the Zags are able to avenge last season’s loss against a very different Alabama team.
