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ESPN’s matchup predictor doesn’t care that Florida and Alabama come into Wednesday night’s showdown in Tuscaloosa in a flat-footed tie for second place in the rough-and-tumble SEC.
Yes, both the fifth-ranked Gators and seventh-ranked Crimson Tide are 12-4 in the league as they collide at Coleman Coliseum for a 7 p.m. ET tipoff on ESPN2. The winner of the matchup between SEC behemoths will go a long way toward determining who the No. 2 seed behind Auburn is for next week’s SEC Tournament.
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Auburn locked up the regular-season title and top seed for the SEC Tournament last weekend when Alabama lost a heartbreaker at the buzzer at Tennessee. So, Nate Oats’s team will try to pick up the pieces on Wednesday night in its home finale before it closes the regular season at top-ranked Auburn on Saturday.
The Crimson Tide enter the contest having lost 3 of their past 5 games, a stretch that began with a home loss to Auburn in the Iron Bowl of Basketball when the teams were ranked 1 and 2 in the AP Poll. Alabama is 23-6 overall, 2 games worse than the 25-4 Gators, who have won 7 of their past 8 games and rebounded from last week’s loss at Georgia with a dominant home victory over Texas A&M on Saturday.
With all that in mind about Alabama and Florida, one would think the ESPN matchup predictor would show some more love for the Gators, even though the game is in Tuscaloosa. But that’s not the case, as ESPN is giving the Crimson Tide a 62.5% chance to take down the Gators on their way to this weekend’s rematch on the Plains.
After Wednesday night’s showdown, Florida will host Ole Miss this weekend to close out its regular season.
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
