TUSCALOOSA, Ala. (AP) — Alabama players go into the Southeastern Conference tournament with two lackluster losses fresh in their minds.

The Crimson Tide (20-10, 9-7) opens Thursday against South Carolina, which handed Alabama its fourth straight loss in late January and is coming off a 60-51 defeat at Mississippi after producing a season-low in points.

Despite that, the Tide seems in solid position to end a six-year NCAA tournament drought that includes a disappointing omission last season.

“We control our own destiny from here out,” point guard Trevor Releford said on Tuesday. “I feel like we’ve got a great opportunity ahead of us. I don’t think any of us are going to look back and say we didn’t give 110 percent. We’re going to do everything that we can do to win this game.”

Beating the Gamecocks (10-20, 2-14) might not help the Tide’s case — the team’s RPI is 31 — as much as a loss would hurt. The winner faces No. 22 Florida.

Alabama had won four straight before the loss to Ole Miss, but has averaged just 53 points and 33-percent shooting over the past two games, including a six-point win over Auburn.

Tide forward JaMychal Green said ending the regular season with that performance led to one of the season’s most intense practices on Monday and a sour feeling in the locker room two days earlier.

“It was mostly quiet,” Green said. “Everybody had their head down. We knew there were a lot of things we could have done better and knew we let each other down as teammates. Coach Grant got on us a little bit. As he said, we didn’t give a lot of effort.”

An even bigger disappointment was that 56-54 loss to a Gamecocks team on Jan. 25 that hadn’t posted an SEC win. Tide players admit that they were outworked, which is bad news for a team built largely on defense and rebounding.

“We’re not a very good team at all when we don’t play with energy and passion,” Grant said. “We’ve had a few situations this year — and I highlight ‘few’ — where we haven’t come out with the passion and energy that we needed to and we suffered the consequences of that.

“Over the course of the 30 games we played, you hope at some point the realization comes through that if we don’t have that, we’re not a very good team.”

Some humbling nonconference losses and a low RPI kept Alabama out of the tournament last season despite a 12-4 SEC record. The Tide responded with a run to the NIT championship game at Madison Square Garden, but now has four freshmen playing key roles who weren’t around for either experience.

Green can tell them how it felt to miss the NCAA field.

“The players that played last year know how it feels not to be selected into the tournament,” he said. “It felt like a letdown.

“It was a great experience for us to go to New York and play for a postseason championship but every team wants to play in the NCAA so that was our goal this year. We know going into it, we can’t have games like that anymore. We have to end strong, and that’s what we’re trying to do now.”