Tide beats excellent SDSU team, but...
Trevor Lacey's 22 foot three pointer at the buzzer lifted the Tide to its first season win. The final score was 70-67. A few things to take home from last night's game. SDSU is a very, very good team. They are so fundamentally sound and shoot the ball with such confidence it is easy to see why they won 28 games last season and went to the NCAA. Nate Wolters is ball player. He ended up with 30 against one of the best defensive coached teams in college basketball. Alabama fell apart for 16 minutes in the first half, played tough basketball the last four minutes opening half, and showed a lot of heart in eking out the win. The Tide is not a good basketball team at this point. As a life long fan it hurts to say that. The post play is so atrocious the Crimson is not going to be competitive in the SEC against teams better than SDSU. Gueye, Engstrom, and Jacobs looked more like the three stooges than the three musketeers. We have a long, long way to go to be a good team. If the post play doesn't improve dramatically it is going to be a long SEC season. For all the Tide fans who criticized the play of Green consider the game exhibit #1 of his value. Bama has no one who has a remote chance to take his place.
Tide half court defense
It's hard to say that Alabama's defense isn't good. Full court, in your face, quick hands, and speed will make the Tide's full court really good. Half court we didn't play well. Going into this game Nate Wolters has hitting 3 point shots at a 24%. Last night he could drop in a 3 from Northport. I have to admit to being stunned that Levi Randolph couldn't slow him down. Wolters is very good, and may be a great player in the end. Last night he was All-World and almost won the game for the JackRabbits by himself. He was better than advertised. The Summit League team had far to many wide open looks the entire game. I'm really impressed that we didn't quit and had the character to come back and win. Make no mistake this was a very good SDSU team. Excellent fundamentals, dead eye shooting, and they run their plays as good as anyone I've ever seen. They remind me of some of the great Princeton teams several years ago with their offensive sets. Alabama played "where's my man" and looked horrible in the search.
But there is no doubt that Bama has a great full court defense. The Tide might be better if Gueye can ever get the ball in the post. Jacobs improvement was not evident because he committed a bunch of those silly fouls, but got one bad call on a elbow throw. It didn't happen. One day the NCAA is going to make a rule that says flopping is a technical foul. Dykstra is a good player but may have career in Hollywood. All in all we were horrible in most regards. Two great stretches of play won the game for the Tide. The middle to late in the second half was good basketball. The last four minutes of the first half was memorable. It just doesn't get any better than that. The Tide better start making some shots or we will get embarrassed by somebody very soon. Of course, it was just one game. Maybe I'm wrong, but I have a sinking feeling I'm not. We'll know a lot more after NYC. If Alabama can play as hard as the picture of Rodney Cooper we'll be competitive.
There are going to be some questions about Pollard. He is a great player waiting to happen but his defense is horrible, and Grant pulled him. He'll get better. He'll help us a ton before the season is over. Mississippi is a long way away from SEC basketball. He'll adapt.
 |
| Releford led Tide with 18 scrappy points |
Tide half court defense
It's hard to say that Alabama's defense isn't good. Full court, in your face, quick hands, and speed will make the Tide's full court really good. Half court we didn't play well. Going into this game Nate Wolters has hitting 3 point shots at a 24%. Last night he could drop in a 3 from Northport. I have to admit to being stunned that Levi Randolph couldn't slow him down. Wolters is very good, and may be a great player in the end. Last night he was All-World and almost won the game for the JackRabbits by himself. He was better than advertised. The Summit League team had far to many wide open looks the entire game. I'm really impressed that we didn't quit and had the character to come back and win. Make no mistake this was a very good SDSU team. Excellent fundamentals, dead eye shooting, and they run their plays as good as anyone I've ever seen. They remind me of some of the great Princeton teams several years ago with their offensive sets. Alabama played "where's my man" and looked horrible in the search.
There are going to be some questions about Pollard. He is a great player waiting to happen but his defense is horrible, and Grant pulled him. He'll get better. He'll help us a ton before the season is over. Mississippi is a long way away from SEC basketball. He'll adapt.
No comments:
Post a Comment