It will be a nerve-wracking couple of days for Alabama baseball. The Crimson Tide is on the NCAA Tournament bubble and unable to help itself any further.

Entering Saturday’s SEC Tournament elimination game, D1 Baseball projected UA as the last team in the field of 64. A win over Florida would have likely secured a spot for Alabama, but the Tide fell to the Gators 11-6. As other bubble and potential bid-stealing teams continue to play, Brad Bohannon’s squad has to wait it out.

Bohannon was asked about being on the bubble in his postgame press conference Saturday.

“I guess I’m supposed to tug on the front of my jersey right now and rattle off all the good things about our resume and conveniently leave out the not-so-good things,” Bohannon said when asked to share his pitch to the NCAA Tournament selection committee.

“But obviously we’re on the bubble, and we’ve done some really good things this year. We won a series from Texas A&M, we beat Arkansas 3 out of 4, split 4 games with Georgia. Did a lot of good things.”

Alabama is on the bubble with 2 of its SEC peers, Ole Miss and Kentucky. Ole Miss was eliminated from the SEC Tournament in the first round, while the Wildcats are playing in an elimination game. Bohannon said all 3 deserve to make the field of 64.

“Look, you ask anybody in this league, I’d tell you there’s 12 teams in this league, we deserve to be in,” Bohannon said. “Ole Miss has one of the best 5 offenses in the country, Kentucky is playing great right now, the way their last 3 or 4 weeks. We all deserve to be in.

“The committee has a tough job because you’re trying to compare teams that haven’t played, and anybody that’s been through this league would probably tell you we should have 11 or 12 in every year. We’ll hope for the best.”

Bohannon believes that the SEC is stronger in the middle and bottom thirds in 2022.

“I hope that our league isn’t punished — we’re not as good at the top third of the league this year as we have been usually,” Bohannon said in his postgame press conference. “The SEC usually has 3 or 4 of the top five teams in the country, but I think the middle and the bottom are the strongest that they’ve ever been.”

For the Crimson Tide, it’s hard not to think “what if” a few close calls had gone the other way.

“I think we have a really good team. I don’t know, 12 losses by 1 run, I don’t know if that means anything, but we’re in a ton of games,” Bohannon said. “If you just win 1 or 2 more of those, your RPI is in the 30s.”

Bohannon’s squad was in a similar spot last year. He considers the 2022 club a better team, one that would be dangerous in an NCAA regional.

“I think we’ll be very dangerous in a regional if we’re able to get in,” the Tide skipper said. “I really believe in this team. We’re way better than last year, and we deserved to be in last year, but we have a better pitching staff, we’re better offensively, we’re better defensively. We’ll hope for the best.”

Alabama will learn its fate Monday. Bohannon admitted he’ll be watching scores closely tomorrow.

“Well, I would tell you that I’m going to go fishing tomorrow and not check my phone every two minutes and hit refresh for every score, but that’s exactly what I’m going to be doing,” Bohannon said. “You’ll get online and try to figure out who you’ve got to cheer for, what team that you don’t know any of the players or coaches that’s halfway across the country that you’re cheering for.

“It’s not a very good feeling to be hoping or have things not be in your control. Yeah, after the game I just told the kids, hey, we’re obviously on the bubble and really don’t know what to tell you. We’ll get back to Tuscaloosa, we’ll take tomorrow off, and when we find something out, we find something out. At this point in time, we need to expect to play.”