Alabama Faces No. 6/7 Tennessee For Saturday Showdown in Knoxville

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – The Alabama men's basketball team looks to improve to remain atop the Southeastern Conference standings, as the Crimson Tide travels to Knoxville, Tenn. to face No. 6/7 Tennessee, Saturday afternoon, at the Food City Center.

The Alabama-Tennessee matchup features the two-highest ranked teams in the NCAA Net Rankings, with Alabama (12-5, 4-0 SEC) ranked No. 5 with Tennessee (13-4, 3-1) right behind at No. 6. Saturday's contest highlights two of the best players in the SEC as Alabama's Mark Sears and Tennessee's Dalton Knecht were both named to the John R. Wooden Award Midseason Top-25 Watch List while also sharing this week's SEC Co-Player of the Week honor.

Alabama is riding a six-game win streak overall entering the contest, including four consecutive SEC wins, thanks in large part to the Crimson Tide's backcourt. Over the last six games, the UA guards are scoring 57 of Alabama's 89 points per game average, led by Mark Sears (18.3 ppg), Rylan Griffen (14.7 ppg), Aaron Estrada (12.8 ppg) and Latrell Wrightsell Jr. (12.0 ppg).

The Broadcast

Saturday's game is set for a 1 p.m. CT tipoff and will be aired on ESPN2 with Karl Ravech (play-by-play) and Jimmy Dykes (analyst) on the call.

The radio broadcast can be heard on the Crimson Tide Sports Network with Chris Stewart (play-by-play) and Bryan Passink (analyst) on the call, while Tom Stipe (engineer) is turning the dials. The pregame show will begin one hour prior to tipoff.

Notes You Need To Know

Alabama head coach Nate Oats is 15-19 against AP Top-25 opponents and 5-8 against Top-10 opponents
Oats recorded his 200th career win with Tuesday's victory over Missouri
Eight of last nine games in the series, including the past six, have been decided by single digits
Alabama is looking to start 5-0 in the SEC for the third time under Oats
For the first time since the 1978 season Alabama has started SEC play 4-0 in back-to-back seasons
Alabama is looking to improve to 5-0 in the SEC in bak-to-back seasons for the first time in program history
Alabama has scored 1,534 points this season (90.2 ppg), the most any UA team has scored in the first 17 games of the season, surpassing last year's team (1,434 points)
The Crimson Tide owns the No. 1-ranked offense, according to KenPom
The Tide is the highest-ranked SEC team in the NET (No. 5) with Tennessee right behind them at No. 6
Mark Sears is one of 25 candidates named to the 2024 John R. Wooden Award Midseason Top-25 Watch List
For the first time in his career, Sears was named SEC Co-Player of the Week along with Tennessee's Dalton Knecht
Sears is one of three players in Division I and the only Power 5 player that has 330 points, 40 three-pointers, 60 assists and 65 rebounds this season
Sears ranks No. 1 in the SEC in scoring (19.6 ppg), No. 3 in field goal percentage (53.3), and No. 10 in assists (3.7 apg)
Alabama is one of six schools in the country that has two players on its current roster that has scored at least 1,500 points throughout their career in Aaron Estrada (1,706 points) and Sears (1,688 points)
Alabama's trio of Estrada, Grant Nelson and Sears have each scored over 1,000 points throughout their college career, which is tied for the third most in the country (St. John's & TCU with four each)

About Tennessee

Over the last four seasons, since 2020-21, the Volunteers are 51-5 (.911) on their home court
Similar to Alabama's non-conference schedule, Tennessee had three straight losses to AP Top-25 opponents (vs. No. 2 Purdue, vs. No. 1 Kansas and at No. 17 North Carolina)
Dalton Knecht is coming off back-to-back 35-plus point games, scoring 36 at Georgia (Jan. 13) and 39 against Florida (Jan. 16)
Knecht is the first SEC player with 28-plus points in three consecutive games in over three years, dating back to LSU's Cameron Thomas doing so from Dec. 26, 2020, to Jan. 2, 2021.
The last player Rick Barnes coached who had 35-plus three times in a season was Kevin Durant, who hit that mark four times in 2006-07
Knecht has scored 101 points in his last 100 minutes—five halves—of basketball, as just two of the 103 came in the opening frame of the first game in that stretch
Tennessee is limiting opponents to 37.4 percent from the field, which ranks No. 5 in Division I
Tennessee placed first in the SEC preseason poll, as voted on by a select panel of both SEC and national media member
Over the past four seasons (2020-24), Tennessee leads all SEC teams in AP top-25 wins with 17, good for co-seventh nationally

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