Wow. You went way back to dig up this thread. The '76 team was great but will give a slight advantage to the 86-87 team. That team was loaded and if not for Donovan w/ Pitino we would have been a Final 4 team.
The 76 team was easily the best team in Bama history. Bobby Knight, whose undefeated national championship team came from behind in the last three minutes to beat us said and still say's, "The best college basketball team I ever coached against"...
Five Parade All-Americans in the starting line up..two first round NBA picks(Douglas-King), three second round picks.
Let's put it this way...in 76 we were ranked number two at some point with a 22-3 record, Florida upset us in Gainesville on a tap in at the buzzer and their students stormed the court and cut down the nets! Think about how times have changed.
We had modern day Kentucky talent over 40 years ago because Bama was a hotbed for recruiting talent.
Had we somehow convinced Allen Murphy from Parker High in B'Ham to sign with Bama instead of Louisville, we may very well have won four straight national titles. UCLA, under John Wooden wouldn't have had as much talent.
Not being negative, but if C.M. Newton had just rolled the ball on the court and said, "Go play"...nobody could have beaten us. He tried to instill discipline and a conservative offense and I never understood why. If he had let 'em loose they would have killed everybody!