Up Next for Alabama Men: the National Tournament

The University of Alabama men’s wheelchair basketball team finished the 2023-2024 regular season with 20-6 overall record and a 13-4 record in Intercollegiate Division play.

Those four division losses are twice as many as the Crimson Tide had last regular season, but the team is on a three-game win streak in college play going into the NWBA National Men’s Wheelchair Basketball Intercollegiate Tournament, which will take place on March 14-16 at Southwest Minnesota State University.

See Alabama's full season schedule and results here.

“I think that we got better all year long. We showed some flashes of brilliance and then some flashes of needing to learn a little bit,” assessed coach Ford Burttram. “Overall, I think we had a really good season, and we have lots of good things to takeaway going into the national tournament.”

Alabama will enter the tournament as the No. 3 seed. It will get a bye in the first round due to its high seed and will begin play in the quarterfinals against the winner of the game between the No. 6 seed University of Texas at Arlington and No. 11 seed Eastern Washington University,

Alabama is the No. 3 seed for the tournament.

(bracket picture from the website of Southwest Minnesota State University)

The Crimson Tide played Eastern Washington twice this season, beating them both times: 86-31 on Jan. 13 and 78-24 later in the day on Jan. 13. The Crimson Tide played Texas-Arlington three times this season and beat them all three times: 58-53 on Jan. 12, 68-56 on Jan. 19, and 57-45 on Jan. 20.

That five-point win over Texas-Arlington in the initial matchup was one of four single-digit margins of victory the team has had this season. It also lost two games by a single-digit margin.

“You’ve got to take care of the ball. You’ve got to stick with your fundamentals, and you’ve got to be very sound defensively to make those games really tip in your favor,” Burttram said of any close games that might come up during the tournament.

See also: Up Next for Alabama Women, the National Championship Tournament

The tournament bracket sets up a potential championship game matchup between Alabama and the No. 1 seed University of Arizona.

Arizona accounts for three of Alabama’s four college division losses this season, though Alabama did beat Arizona once in the third of the two teams’ four contests.

Alabama beat Arizona 73-68 in the championship game of last year’s tournament to win the program’s fourth national championship. Alabama was the No. 2 seed for last year’s tournament. Arizona was the No. 1 seed.

The University of Alabama men's wheelchair basketball team celebrates after beating the University of Arizona 73-68 in the national championship game on March 18 

(photo courtesy of Alabama Adapted Athletics)

“I think we have a target on our back like anybody else would; Everybody’s going to give you their best shot,” junior Eric Francis said of being defending national champions. “For us, it’s just knowing that basketball is a game of runs and that when they go on their run, we have to step back and put together our own run.”

Burttram said most of the team’s remaining practice time before the tournament will be spent focusing on defense and, now that the bracket has come out, trying to replicate the style of teams that they might come up against.

“It’s just fine-tuning at this point,” said Francis. “We have the tools in our toolbox, and we need to just trust the process. We may not be ready today, but, come the start of the tournament, we’ll be ready to play anybody that we draw in the bracket!”

"I think it’s a lot of fun!" Burttram proclaimed of the single-elimination format of the tournament. "I think it’s really good to breathe it in and to pause and wake up every morning ready for the challenge and ready to get after it!"

The program is seeking its fifth national championship.