No. 15 Iona Draws No. 2 Alabama In Opening Round Of NCAA Tournament
INDIANAPOLIS, IND. – Earning the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference automatic bid with a miraculous MAAC Championship run, the Iona College men's basketball program has been tabbed as a No. 15 seed in the 2021 NCAA Championship and will face No. 2 Alabama on Saturday, March 20 in the first round.
Alabama won the SEC Tournament over LSU to secure its first league title in 30 seasons. The Crimson Tide enter the NCAA Tournament with a 24-6, 16-2 SEC record. Alabama's No. 2 seed is tied for the program's highest NCAA Tournament seed since 2001-02.
The Gaels and Crimson Tide have only met once before, back in 1989, with Alabama earning the victory at a neutral site in Santa Clara, California.
The winner of Iona versus Alabama will advance to the second round of the tournament to play the winner of No. 7 UConn and No. 10 Maryland
Stay tuned to ICGaels.com and all Iona College athletics and men's basketball social media for updates regarding the NCAA Tournament.
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ABOUT IONA
Founded in 1940, Iona University is a master's-granting private, Catholic, coeducational institution of learning in the tradition of the Edmund Rice Christian Brothers. Iona's 45-acre New Rochelle campus and 28-acre Bronxville campus are just 20 miles north of Midtown Manhattan. With a total enrollment of nearly 4,000 students and an alumni base of more than 50,000 around the world, Iona is a diverse community of learners and scholars dedicated to academic excellence and the values of justice, peace and service. Iona is highly accredited, offering undergraduate degrees in liberal arts, science and business administration, as well as Master of Arts, Master of Science and Master of Business Administration degrees and numerous advanced certificate programs. Iona students enjoy small class sizes, engaged professors and a wide array of academic programs across the School of Arts & Science; LaPenta School of Business; NewYork-Presbyterian Iona School of Health Sciences; and Hynes Institute for Entrepreneurship & Innovation. Iona also continues to be recognized in prestigious national rankings. Most recently for 2025, Iona has been named one of the nation’s best colleges by The Princeton Review, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes and others. Additionally, U.S. News & World Report recognized Iona as one of top for social mobility in the country, while Georgetown University's Center on Education and the Workforce (CEW) ranked an Iona degree in the top 5 percent nationally for long-term return on investment. Iona’s LaPenta School of Business, meanwhile, is also accredited by AACSB International, a recognition awarded to just 6 percent of business schools worldwide. In addition, The Princeton Review recognized Iona’s on-campus MBA program as a “Best Business School for 2024.” Iona also offers a fully online MBA program for even greater flexibility. In July 2021, Iona announced the establishment of the NewYork-Presbyterian Iona School of Health Sciences, which is now principally located on Iona’s Bronxville campus in collaboration with one of the nation’s top hospitals. Connecting to its Irish heritage, Iona also opened a new campus in County Mayo, Ireland, located on the historic 400-acre Westport House Estate. A school on the rise, Iona officially changed its status from College to University on July 1, 2022, reflecting the growth of its academic programs and the prestige of an Iona education.