Alabama completed a three overtime, roughly three hour basketball game today that all but ended any chance they had at qualifying for the NCAA tournament. After a dismal start to the season, Anthony Grant's team had clawed their way back onto and through the bubble, and it looked as though with a win today and a win over either Ole Miss or Florida and Georgia they just might make it in.
But in Alabama basketball fashion they choked. They were lucky to extend the game to three overtimes. After a dominating performance through all but the last minute of regulation, Grant's team fell short, yet again, to another weak opponent. Grant doesn't appear to have lost his team, but I can't understand why. They fail in every aspect of their game except defense, and when they finally starting hitting jump shots they quit playing defense.
Today's loss at LSU was another break in the strings that have Grant loosely tied to his job, and I can't imaging him staying much longer if the Tide remains a consistent NIT team. Shame of it is I like the man, and I really pull for him, but something is missing, and it's hard to put a finger on it. Alabama doesn't have many impressive wins this year, but they have some very impressive losses. Auburn is one and now LSU is another. That is plenty reason to keep them out of the tournament and as hard as it is for me to say, they don't deserve to be there.
I'm going to have to disagree on several points. First, this is not a bad LSU team. This loss doesn't rank in the same stratosphere with the Auburn debacle! LSU is playing as good a ball as anyone in the SEC not named Florida for the last couple of weeks. They have some players on that team. Imagine for a minute Johnny O'Bryant playing for Bama! I thought Bama's D on him was sound all day long. Running doubles at him, but he's good at passing as well as scoring. He didn't score a lot until the OT periods, but he set up his teammates beautifully. They're guards are also pretty good. LSU bears watching in the SEC tourney. Second, I know RPI wise and the way they lost, it is a bad loss. No doubt. However, there were a lot of good things to take away from this game. Bama's offense has improved somewhat, and after choking the game away in regulation, the team still battled and had chances to win the game in first 2 Ot's without Gueye and Randolph. Let's give Bama and LSU a little credit for playing a great game! Thirdly, I don't think this loss killed Bama's at large hopes. Bama has 4 games left. 3 of them are very winnable in my opinion. I'm not so sure that with an offensive performance like yesterday, that Bama couldn't go in and hang around with Florida for a while. If they can get the other 3 wins, Bama would be 13-5 and I think more than likely all alone in 2nd place. In 2nd or 3rd place, you play opposite Florida in the SEC tourney. Besides Florida and maybe Mizzou with their size, there is not one other team in the SEC Bama cannot beat! 13-5 plus getting to Semi's or chamionship game of tourney in my opinion gets Bama right there for those last few spots. Fourth, I didn't see Grant in uniform melting down with the rest of the team. Grant, is the coach and ultimately responsible, but when are players going to be held accountable? It wasn't Grant that couldn't get a rebound late. It wasn't Grant turning the ball over. Let's be real. Bama had momentum, made a couple bad decisions, lost momentum, bad bounce of the ball here, bad bounce there, game goes 3 ot's, Bama loss. There is mediocre play just like that rampant in college basketball. Not just at Bama.
ReplyDeleteGood points Carey. The post was written largely out of frustration although, I stand my ground on the choking part. Bama had that game firmly in their grasp throughout the entire second half and with three or four minutes left and a ten minute lead, I saw two maybe three three point shots taken with twenty seconds left on the shot clock which in my opinion was bad basketball. We discussed the value of Grant the other day, and I stick with you. I like him, but I do believe yesterday's game cost them a bid for the tourney. I hope you are right.
ReplyDeleteNo doubt they choked. It was a very frustrating loss, but I do think LSU is a much improved team and I knew Bama would have trouble getting out with a W. I think prior losses makes yesterday's loss a lot worse than it actually is. Don't blow the game at Tennessee, or lose to Auburn, and it's a completely different conversation. You're quite right. Execution and decision making in crunch time was awful, but they did recover in ot. We'll see what happens from here. I think we need to pull for the Wildcats. UK and Villanova. Bama's best W's to bolster tourney hopes.
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