Iona vs. Alabama Bracket Prediction: March Madness Odds
The Tide are 17-point favourites on the college basketball odds with a total of 148.
Iona vs. Alabama NCAA Tournament Point Spread and Betting
The winner will face either No. 7 Connecticut or No. 10 Maryland in the Round of 32.
Alabama is +350 second favorite to win the East Region, +399 to reach the Final Four and +1900 to win a national title and stamp that university as the clear power school in the two big men’s collegiate sports after Nick Saban’s football team won yet another championship back in January. The University of Florida is the only school to win a basketball and football national title in the same year. Iona is +10000 to win the East Region.
Since the NCAA Tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985, only eight times has a No. 15 seed beaten a No. 2. In the past six tournaments, the No. 15 seed is 23-1 and the only loss was by Michigan State to Middle Tennessee in 2016. Twenty-one of those 23 wins by 15 seeds were by double digits.
Iona and Alabama have met once, with the Tide winning in 1989 in a neutral-site regular-season game in California. The Gaels are 1-6 against the spread in their past seven NCAA Tournament games and the Tide 0-4 ATS in their past four tourney games as favourites.
(15) Iona Gaels
No question that Rick Pitino will be the biggest story line of this game as while no one can argue his incredible success in college basketball, he also has run afoul of NCAA rules quite often and in fact may still be facing a fairly long suspension for what happened a few years ago when he was at Louisville.
Iona (12-5), which had a COVID break of around six weeks at one point, beat Fairfield 60-51 in the MAAC Tournament title game one day shy of the one-year anniversary of the school hiring Pitino. He became the third coach in the history of college basketball to lead five different teams to the NCAA Tournament (Louisville, Kentucky, Providence, Boston University). It’s the 15th NCAA Tournament appearance for the Gaels, who are 1-14 in their previous 14. The lone victory was in 1980. Senior guard Isaiah Ross (18.4 ppg) is the team’s star.
(2) Alabama Crimson Tide
Maybe the hottest coach in the country right now is Alabama’s Nate Oats – already there are rumours Indiana will try to lure him – for what Oats has accomplished at a football school. The Tide (24-6) won the SEC regular-season title and then edged LSU for their first SEC Tournament crown in 30 years. The No. 2 seed matches the highest NCAA Tournament seed in program history, with the 2002 team also a No. 2.
It’s Alabama’s 21st Big Dance and first since 2018. Oats previously took MAC school Buffalo to the NCAA Tournament three times and won first-round games in 2018 & ’19. The Tide are full of future NBA players, led by SEC Player of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year Herbert Jones (11.2 ppg, 6.5 rpg, 1.1 spg, 1.1 bpg).
IONA
ALA