Alabama basketball joins the championship parade. How far can the Tide's ride go?

With 18 national championships in football, it is easy for the world to simply see Alabama as a football school.

Of course, with 6 national championships, Alabama could also be a gymnastics school. Or a men’s golf school. Or a softball school. Or a women’s golf school.

Nate Oats would like a word.

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Alabama stated its case as a basketball school with a flourish Sunday, capping what could well turn out to be a dream season by edging LSU 80-79 in the championship game of the SEC Tournament in Nasvhille, Tenn.

Just as was the case in January with the football team at Hard Rock Stadium, the Crimson Tide partied among the falling confetti and took selfies with the outsized trophy — with the twist of also cutting down the Bridgestone Arena nets. Oats, Alabama’s fiery second-year coach, was quick to point out to the television audience when he was asked on the podium about changing expectations in Tuscaloosa and beyond.

“Look, Alabama football had a tweet out yesterday that somebody showed to me that said, ‘Championship school,’” Oats said after Sunday’s victory. “So we don’t have to be a football school or a basketball school. We can just win championships. We’re a championship school.”

Indeed.

This isn’t your father’s Crimson Tide, in that they didn’t often fall short in big moments and are primed for a deep run in the NCAA Tournament starting Saturday as a No. 2 seed in the East Region — matching the highest seed Alabama has earned in history. Alabama also received a No. 2 seed in the 1987 and 2002 NCAA Tournaments.

Current Alabama assistant coach Antoine Pettway was a player on the Crimson Tide’s 2004 Elite Eight team. Oats, who signed a huge contract extension in February, went to the NCAA Tournament three times while at Buffalo, posting a 2-3 record.

Standing in the way of Alabama in the first round is No. 15 seed Iona, coached by former Kentucky coaching legend Rick Pitino. The Gaels went 12-5 this season and beat Fairfield 60-51 in the MAAC Tournament title game Saturday. Unless Pitino somehow brings a bunch of former Wildcat greats and wedges them into maroon and gold, though, this looks like a delicious matchup to begin the tournament.

The Alabama-Iona winner then gets the UConn-Maryland winner in the second round Monday. Michigan, which lost to Ohio State in the Big Ten Tournament semifinals, is the No. 1 seed in the East Region.

Alabama has three key seniors on board, as John Petty, Alex Reese and SEC Player of the Year Herb Jones were a part of Alabama’s 2018 NCAA team that advanced to the second round before losing to eventual champion Villanova. Additionally, senior transfer Jordan Bruner scored 16 points for Yale in a 79-74 loss to LSU in the 2019 NCAA first round, and sophomore Jahvon Quinerly was a member of Villanova’s 2019 NCAA team but did not play in the Wildcats’ two games that season.

Alabama has now won 8 SEC tournament titles, which remains the second-most in conference history behind Kentucky’s 31. The Tide last won both the regular-season and conference tournament titles in 1987, when they also defeated LSU in the championship game.

“[My] voice is shot, I’m exhausted. I really just want to take a nap,” Oats said in his postgame news conference after a wild finish to edge LSU. “Go back, pack my room up. It’s a disaster because all I’ve been doing is watching video. Pack up my room, get the bus loaded, get our matchup, load up the video on my computer, watch some video on the way up to Indy.

“We’ll get some sleep and rest after the NCAA Tournament is over.”

Oats is cognizant of Alabama’s spotty history in the NCAA Tournament, of course, and one can imagine he knows his role in the hierarchy of Alabama athletics. If not, a simple Google search of Nick Saban’s contract would do the trick. But Oats leaned into some of that history Sunday, donning a crimson-patterned sports coat for the SEC Tournament title game in what he called a sort of “modernized” ode to former Tide coach Wimp Sanderson.

What is the ceiling for Alabama in this dream season? It is hard to say, really, as the NCAA Tournament is the ultimate crapshoot where odd matchups and one-off career performances lurk.

Is this a Final Four year for the Crimson Tide? Can Alabama dare to dream as big as Florida did in 2006-07, when the Gators won the BCS National Championship on the gridiron and repeated as basketball national champions?

Alabama is a championship school, Nate Oats said out loud Sunday night — draped in the smiles that a dominant program can deliver. Sounds about right.