Alabama men's basketball faces last rest before championship push

March is rapidly approaching, and all of the glory that comes with a deep postseason run remains in play for the Alabama Crimson Tide. 

It's not going to be easy, fortunately for the Tide. The team has a weeklong break before diving back into a tough stretch of regular season games, then the SEC and NCAA tournaments.

Head coach Nate Oats would be wise to help the team mentally reset and prepare for the difficult task ahead of them.

As things currently stand, the No. 15 Tide is situated well, tied with No. 11 South Carolina for the lead in the SEC and Alabama is predicted to be a top-four seed in the NCAA tournament. 

But with just over a month left until selection Sunday, there's still plenty of time for this team to move up the rankings or blow a chance at greatness, and Alabama's path to the former is no small undertaking. 

The rest of the schedule includes two matchups with Florida, who is likely to make the NCAA tournament, as well as a game against perennial rival Arkansas and another against a Tennessee team that crushed the Tide by 20 points last month. Oh yeah, and a game against Kentucky in Rupp Arena that will be nationally broadcast on CBS. 

This squad has already made large strides, including an improvement from 6-5 to 17-7 overall and 9-2 in SEC play and key pieces are falling into place. Forward Nick Pringle has been suspended twice this season, but in the 109-92 win over the Bayou Bengals on Saturday, he put up 17 points and five rebounds while holding LSU's top scorer to only two second-half points. 

After the game, Oats praised Pringle for being "mentally ready" and attributed his success to preparation. 

"[Pringle] has been up and down, in and out of the lineup," Oats said, as reported by Sports Illustrated's BamaCentral. "His attitude has been great all week, his effort in practice has been great all week. I think he's gotten to a great place mentally, emotionally." 

If the rest of the team gets there too, watch out. Alabama could be gearing up for some more SEC hardware and a deep postseason run.