Tosklosa, Alaa – The entire gym was frozen in a whistle.
“He listens!” Scream Alabama The team coach, Nate OTS, while he was introducing him to the stadium from the side line, and refused to raise his foot from the gas in a modern practice. “There should not be any 3 throws against this defense! Nothing!”
Three hours southeast, Oporne The main coach Bruce Pearl was in a similar condition.
“This doesn’t work!” He shouted at his players during the mid -February session, and his hands were thrown into the air. “This does not do what our big men shout! Do it again!”
Each time the tigers and the crimson meet in the competition dating back to 1893, there are fireworks. Throughout its history, the summit of this conflict inside the country at the football field occurred in Iron Bowl. However, Saturday’s ranates match between 1 Oborn and the second number of Alabama in Tuscalosa (4 pm East time, EspnThe basketball center will be placed in the first one meeting versus 2 in the history of the Supreme Education Council – not only these two teams.
The risks have raised the competition to another threshold.
“This is definitely a big game,” he said Grant NelsonAlabama striker, average 12.7 points per game. “This is what everyone is talking about. This is what all my friends want to go out and watch because they want to pick up that game.”
The first Saturday match between the two best university basketball teams will be since Gonzaga and Ucla in Las Vegas during the 2021-22 season, and the first meeting in conferences that includes the first and second teams since Kansas and Akllahoma have been fought in the three-time relationship in 2016, according to Research ESPN.
The rise of these two teams also represents a changing hierarchy in university basketball that challenges the traditional definition of “blue blood”. Pearl and Oats led, respectively, Oborn (2019) and Albama (2024) led to the first four final appearances in the history of each program. Although it is known as football schools, Alabama and Oborne are entering Saturday as SEC painters preparing to break the record for the NCAA men for most conference offers by securing more than ten in the selection on Sunday.
The programs reached this moment with a distinctive approach.
Mark Cers (17.8 PPG, 4.9 APG) leads the tide, which plays at the fastest pace in America. Under the oats, they release approximately 3 throws half the time they own the ball-ritual ball in the bars (they have reached 100 points in seven games this season).
In Oporne, John BromOne of the senior candidates for this year’s national player, is the dominant strength that directs the Tigers team that turns each game into a heavyweight seizure. It is the most balanced team in America, as it ranks first in modified offensive efficiency and within the best 20 in the defensive efficiency modified on Kenpom. Tigers are also one of the most experienced teams in the country (nine elderly), and it can be said that the deepest (10 average players for 10 minutes per game).
Fans who lived during the previous seasons expects to compete in Alabama Oporn with an intense battle, but they also warn classifications alone that does not mean everything in this match.
The tide supporters wander, well, anything – and at any time.
“I hope we only leave us alone,” Michael Floyd, who was announced by Oporn Supervan, and former deputy head of the forest, told the Tigers Basketball Students Department. “Let’s get something for one time. We get good [at] Basketball and now they want to invest in the end? Come here.
“I don’t want to say this, but you have to give a balance where the credit is due: what they do there is crazy as well, which makes what we do here is more private. Because we want to win when our competitor is good.
This competition was characterized by a copy of this type of energy on solid wood early in 2011 – before any of the team was good – and has caused a battle.
As Newton-with the Heisman Cup, he just won on hand-and his teammates gathered near the stadium at Arburn Arena at the time for the official celebration of the Iron Bowl and Pregame Parties, and the then-Apla Point goalkeeper Trevor Rilford for a problem.
Ubourn’s football players made the men’s basketball team in Alabama at the entrance to the square before the tide on the ground runs on Tebov. Releford, the first team goalkeeper of the first century during his time in Alabama, will not mention Asma. But he was not surprised either. He said this is just the fiery nature of Alabama Oporn.
“These men in the football team-they had a small entrance to us in the gym-they allowed us to feel a little bodily,” said Rilford of Alabama’s game. He visited Tuscuna. “It is Alabama. It’s Oporn. They have given us a little joke. [tough]. But it was good to spice that game. “
The last matches did not require any additional uproar.
The success of both teams prompted “Iron Bowl of Basketball” – a phrase tired by the two schools – to a different dimension. Yes, bragging rights are always the main prize in this competition. But the result of Saturday may affect the national features of both schools, as the winner rushed to earn an easier road to San Antonio and the National Championship.
“There is no professional sport in Alabama,” said Pearl. “We were. There was time, if you were from this part of the country – Georgia, Alabama or Mississippi – you had to go to Kansas, Kentucky, North Carolina or Duke because you could not come to schools, championships, become professional and stay at home.
This shift in the situation coincided with an upgrade in the comprehensive training rates of SEC. The oats and pearl have turned their programs into attractive centers for transfers and elite soldiers. They have collected to produce nine choices of the first round in the US Professional League draft since 2018; Four for Oborne and five for Albama. They established themselves as a perennial parting in the NCAA championship – and now, competing for the national title.
Since Pearl arrived in Oporn in 2014 and oats joined Alabama in 2019, they changed expectations in their schools and continued at the best team teams in a transformational stage for this sport. Now, they will meet to determine the best team in America.
“The good thing is that we are playing against the best team in the country, twice here in the last month of the season.” “Therefore, we will get ourselves testing.”
It will be a test for both teams.
Alabama and Oborne will play the most pivotal games in their competition’s history – perhaps in any sport, including football – in Tusciaosa on Saturday, then they will do this again on March 8 in Oborn.
Fans who grew up in this competition knows that after 24 hours of Valentine’s Day, one of these teams will achieve their heart.
“I know we woke up a little more,” said Rilford. “It is Alabama, Oborn. You do not want to be on the losing side. .
