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Alabama reached the Final Four last season and Houston achieved the same milestone three years earlier.

And both teams are among the early favorites to make a deep run in this season’s NCAA Tournament.

So it goes that two of the best programs in the nation will share the same court on Tuesday night when the No. 9 Crimson Tide battle the sixth-ranked Cougars in the Players Era Festival in Las Vegas.

Alabama (4-1) and Houston (3-1) are part of the four-team Impact Group along with Rutgers and Notre Dame. The Crimson Tide will face Rutgers on Wednesday, and Houston will face Notre Dame.

The top team in the Impact Group will face the top squad in the Power Group in Saturday’s championship game. The teams in the Power Group are No. 20 Texas A&M, No. 21 Creighton, Oregon and San Diego State. There will also be third-place, fifth-place and seventh-place games.

The Crimson Tide lost 87-78 to No. 13 Purdue on Nov. 15 before bouncing back with a 100-87 victory over then-No. 25 Illinois on a neutral court in Birmingham, Ala.

Grant Nelson scored a season-high 23 points against the Fighting Illini as the Crimson Tide reached the 100-point mark for the second time this season.

Alabama thrived despite All-American guard Mark Sears going scoreless and missing all five of his field-goal attempts, including four from beyond the 3-point line.

“He was great on the bench. He was struggling. There’s a lot of pressure on him, obviously, being a home-state kid that came back,” Crimson Tide coach Nate Oats said of Sears. “He’s the (Southeastern Conference) preseason player of the year, and he’s trying to do well. Teams are gearing their defense toward him.”

Sears is averaging 13.8 points after ranking second in the SEC with 21.5 per game last season. He also was second in 3-point shooting percentage at 43.6 percent; so far, he’s at 29.2 percent (7 of 24) this season.

Nelson leads the Crimson Tide with 14.2 points per game and ranks second in rebounds per game (7.0).

As always, Houston is relying on defense, and it has allowed 45 points or fewer in all three of its victories. Overall, the Cougars are second nationally in scoring defense (50.8 points allowed per game) entering Monday’s play.

Houston’s only loss came against then-No. 11 Auburn, 74-69 on Nov. 9.

The Cougars are coming off an 80-44 home victory over Hofstra. Joseph Tugler scored a career-best 17 points on 6-of-6 shooting off the bench, and Emanuel Sharp tallied 16 points and was 5-for-5 from 3-point range.

Sharp is shooting a sizzling 73.3 percent from 3-point range (11 of 15) while averaging a team-leading 11.8 points per game.

Tugler is averaging 8.5 points after contributing just 3.8 per game last season as a freshman.

Houston coach Kelvin Sampson bluntly said Tugler will not shoot this well again all season.

“Someone’s going to say this ridiculous statement: ‘If Jojo shoots like that for the rest of the year,'” Sampson said. “Jojo will never shoot like that the rest of the year, that’s a once-in-a-blue-moon night. The best shooters miss six out of 10. Well, he’s not one of the best shooters. At best, he’s a 3-for-10 guy after you average it all out.

“I don’t get carried away when they have bad nights, and I don’t get carried away when they have good nights.”

The teams have split six all-time meetings, with the Cougars winning the first in 1956. More recently, Alabama won the past two games.

–Field Level Media