Bama Hoops Agrees to 2-Year Series With Gonzaga

The Alabama basketball team has reportedly agreed to a two-year neutral-site series with the Gonzaga Bulldogs starting in the 2021-2022 basketball season. The Crimson Tide will travel to Seattle to play ‘Zaga this upcoming season, while the Washington-based basketball blue-blood will travel south to Birmingham in the 2022-2023 season.

Jon Rothstein, a basketball insider for CBS Sports confirmed the series this afternoon. In his article about the series announcement, Rothstein writes that no date has been confirmed for the Seattle game, but he expects it to be played on December 4. Coincidentally, this is the same date as the SEC Championship Game for football in Atlanta.

Third-year Alabama head coach Nate Oats coached the Crimson Tide in 2020-2021 to one of its best seasons since the tenure of legendary head coach Wimp Sanderson. Alabama won the regular-season SEC title, the SEC conference tournament, and made it to the “Sweet 16” round before falling to UCLA.

Get our free mobile app

While Alabama was having a benchmark year in Tuscaloosa, Gonzaga, led by head coach Mark Few, breezed through a tough Western Athletic Conference schedule before posting an impressive 31-1 record. The Bulldogs won every regular-season game and rolled through the NCAA Tournament before falling to Baylor in the National Championship game.

Alabama and Gonzaga could have met in this year’s “March Madness,” had it not been for UCLA. The Bulldogs met the Bruins in the “Final 4.”

While ‘Zaga is a mid-major, the team has grown in prominence since they started making deep tournament runs in the early 2010s. In fact, the Bulldogs made the National Championship in the 2016-2017 season before they fell to North Carolina.

Going into the 2021-2022 season, both teams are expected to make deep postseason runs.