March Madness 2023: Alabama upset by San Diego State, No. 1 overall seed Crimson Tide knocked out in Sweet 16

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Mar 24, 2023; Louisville, KY, USA; San Diego State Aztecs guard Matt Bradley (20) drives against Alabama Crimson Tide forward Brandon Miller (24) and guard Jahvon Quinerly (5) during the second half of the NCAA tournament round of sixteen at KFC YUM! Center.

The championship drought for No. 1 overall seeds in the men’s NCAA Tournament will extend another year after No. 5 seed San Diego State in a Sweet 16 stunner sent top-seeded Alabama packing in a 71-64 upset Friday night. The Crimson Tide became the ninth No. 1 overall seed to fail to win the title in the last nine tournaments, extending the title-less streak that began in 2014.

San Diego State stood tall and took mighty Alabama’s punches throughout the game and delivered haymakers when necessary to pull off the upset. After trailing by as many as nine points midway through the second half, SDSU strung together a 12-0 run to take the lead for good as it made big shots on offense and iced Alabama on the other end.

Alabama was scarcely tested in the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament with 21 and 22 point wins over Texas A&M-Corpus Christi and Maryland, respectively. Facing a top-five defensive unit in San Diego State, the Crimson Tide struggled to make shots from distance and were out-physicaled by the MWC juggernaut down the stretch.

All season long, Alabama has gone mostly as its star freshman, Brandon Miller, has gone, and that was again the case in the South Regionals semifinals. Miller had one of his worst outings of the season against SDSU, finishing with just nine points on 3-of-19 shooting and failing to capture any sort of shooting rhythm for most of the game.

San Diego State leading scorer Matt Bradley also struggled on the other side of things but the Aztecs got a huge performance from transfer guard Darrion Trammell, a former star at Seattle, who led the game in scoring and came alive in the second half. As it has done all season, SDSU also leaned on its defense down the stretch to force Alabama’s typically-efficient offense into making tough (and often bad) decisions.

This story will be updated with takeaways