Alabama, Houston atop final AP Top 25 ahead of NCAA tournament

The overall No. 1 seed for March Madness is No. 1 in the final AP Top 25, too.

Alabama, fresh off an SEC Tournament title to go with its regular-season crown, ascended to the top spot Monday, earning 48 of 61 first-place votes to jump Houston, which lost in the American Athletic Conference final without star guard Marcus Sasser. Alabama also spent a week at No. 1 last month.

«We set goals over the summer: regular season, (league) tournament, obviously a national championship,» Crimson Tide guard Jahvon Quinerly said. «I'm going to make sure our guys are ready to go no matter who we match up with.»

That will be Texas A&M-Corpus Christi or Southeast Missouri State, who meet in a First Four game Tuesday night. The winner will play the Crimson Tide on Thursday in Birmingham, an hour down the road from their Tuscaloosa campus.

The top seed in the South Region, Alabama would face West Virginia or Maryland for a spot in the Sweet 16 with a win.

And how sweet that would be for a team that's gone through the ringer: former teammate Darius Miles and another man have been indicted on capital murder charges for a January shooting, an investigator has testified star freshman Brandon Miller was asked by Miles to bring the gun that night and police have also said Jaden Bradley was at the scene.

«To beat the teams we had to beat to get here was not easy,» Alabama coach Nate Oats said last week. «So proud of the guys, proud of their effort, proud they were able to get really focused. Got a lot of mental toughness.»

Houston still received nine first-place votes and was No. 2 after losing to Memphis in the final of the AAC tourney, where Sasser hurt his groin in the semifinal round. He did not play in the championship and his status will