Alabama, Houston 1, 2 in Top 25 poll
The overall No. 1 seed for March Madness is No. 1 in the final AP Top 25, too.
Alabama, fresh off an SEC Tournament title to go with its regular-season crown, ascended to the top spot Monday, earning 48 of 61 first-place votes to jump Houston, which lost in the American Athletic Conference final without star guard Marcus Sasser. Alabama also spent a week at No. 1 last month.
“We set goals over the summer: Regular season, [league] tournament, obviously a national championship,” Crimson Tide guard Jahvon Quinerly said. “I’m going to make sure our guys are ready to go no matter who we match up with.”
That will be Texas A&M-Corpus Christi or Southeast Missouri State, who meet in a First Four game tonight. The winner will play the Crimson Tide on Thursday in Birmingham, an hour down the road from their Tuscaloosa campus.
The top seed in the South Region, Alabama would face West Virginia or Maryland for a spot in the Sweet 16 with a win.
And how sweet that would be for a team that’s gone through the ringer: Former teammate Darius Miles and another man have been indicted on capital murder charges for a January shooting, an investigator has testified star freshman Brandon Miller was asked by Miles to bring the gun that night and police have also said Jaden Bradley was at the scene.
“To beat the teams we had to beat to get here was not easy,” Alabama Coach Nate Oats said last week. “So proud of the guys, proud of their effort, proud they were able to get really focused. Got a lot of mental toughness.”
Houston still received nine first-place votes and was No. 2 after losing to Memphis in the final of the AAC tourney, where Sasser hurt his groin in the semifinal round. He did not play in the championship and his status will be watched closely leading up to the Cougars’ NCAA opener against Northern Kentucky.
Purdue, seeded first in the East Region, earned three first-place votes and was third in the AP poll after the regular-season Big Ten champion won its conference tournament, too. Kansas, which expects to have Bill Self back for the NCAA tourney after a medical scare, was fourth after receiving the No. 1 seed in the West.
Texas routed the Jayhawks in the finals of the Big 12 Tournament and rounded out the top five.
Marquette remained at No. 6 after its Big East tourney title. UCLA earned one first-place vote and was seventh after losing in the Pac-12 Tournament final to Arizona, which was No. 8. Gonzaga and UConn rounded out the top 10.
“We have a special team. We’re not going to do what our past teams have done, which was to maybe get caught up in the wallow of losing,” said UConn Coach Dan Hurley, whose team fell to the Golden Eagles in the Big East tourney semifinals. “We’re going to get our minds right very quickly and get ready to make a run next week.”
Duke made the biggest jump in the final poll after beating Virginia for the ACC Tournament title, climbing nine spots to No. 12 — the highest the Blue Devils have been since the third week of the season. First-year coach Jon Scheyer has them seeded fifth in the East in the NCAA Tournament.
UCLA, seeded second in the West, fell five spots to No. 7 in the final poll.