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Ball doesn't lie. Neither do the numbers. Add them up, and guess which state can stake the strongest claim as the national champion of postseason college basketball pre-March Madness.
Alabama the Beautiful is Alabama the Bountiful when it comes to stuffing the brackets of the NCAA Tournament and the NIT.
Four teams from the state will play in the Big Dance: Auburn, Alabama, Troy and Alabama State. Only Texas, with five teams in the field, has more. California, North Carolina and Tennessee also have four bids of their own.
Four more locals will play in the Big Brother of the basketball postseason, the NIT, which started in 1938, a year before the NCAA Tournament: UAB, Samford, Jax State and North Alabama. Only California, with seven bids, has more. No other state has more than two.
In all, eight of Alabama's Division I teams are postseason-bound. Not only is that a state record, it ranks second behind California with 11 as the state sending the most teams into the NCAA Tournament and the NIT in 2025.
There are only six states that have produced multiple entrants into each of those tournaments. Besides California with 11 and Alabama with eight, they are Texas with seven (5 NCAAT, 2 NIT), Tennessee with six (4 NCAAT, 2 NIT) and Illinois and Ohio with four each (2 NCAAT, 2 NIT).
What makes Alabama's collective performance even more impressive is that it has the smallest number of Division I teams among those states. California has 26, the most in the country. Texas has 25, Illinois 13, Ohio 13 and Tennessee 12. Alabama has a close-to-perfect 10.
The bad news is, South Alabama should be joining the state's postseason parade. The Jaguars shared the Sun Belt regular-season title and earned the league's No. 1 seed in the conference tournament. The NIT called Sunday night and offered USA a bid, which Sun Belt coach of the year Richie Riley accepted. He told his players, and they were thrilled.
Later that evening, Riley said, the NIT called back and rescinded the invitation in a shameful reversal. The feeble explanation: UC Riverside had been in line to get the last NIT bid but was passed over because it had committed to play in the College Basketball Invitational. UCR even announced on its official X account that it was headed to the CBI. Then the school wriggled out of that commitment and told the NIT it was available.
Instead of saying, "Sorry, too late," the NIT decided to take back South Alabama's berth and hand it to UC Riverside, crushing the Jaguars in the process. To make the decision even more unconscionable, Sun Belt Commissioner Keith Gill was part of the process as a member of the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Committee. Instead of fighting for South Alabama, one of his Sun Belt schools, Gill rolled over for a school from the Big West.
To add additional insult to injury, South Alabama is more deserving of the NIT bid. USA, Sun Belt co-champion, is No. 123 in the NET rankings. UC Riverside, which finished tied for third in the Big West, is No. 142. South Alabama also is well ahead of UCR in KenPom at 121 to 145.
If the NIT had done the right thing, this state would have nine postseason teams out of 10 and California would have 10 out of 26. Do the math, and by any measure, per capita or pound for pound, it's easy to see which state has played at a higher level this season.
After finishing third in the country in collective conference winning percentage during the regular season at .683 - behind Vermont with its single DI team and New Mexico with only two - after earning more postseason bids than any state but the largest state in the nation, there's only one thing left for Alabama to do to put a bow on its status as an elite basketball state.
Win the NCAA Tournament. Win the NIT. Win the NCAA Division II championship with UAH. Win the NJCAA title with Wallace State Community College in Hanceville. Against all odds, all those things are possible at this moment. Because the sport has never been as good here at as many places as it is right now.
Ball
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