GAME DAY STORY LATER TODAY.

Tide faces the most important game in Grant's tenure on Tuesday in Auburn...   

Tarrant is reported "day to day" 

Can Bama pull of the upset?  

Grant needs this one in the worst way

  Tomorrow night, if all goes as it seems it should, there will be a new king of the hill in the Alabama/Auburn basketball rivalry. Auburn, under Bruce Pearl has shown that the Tigers are serious about turning around a very one side rivalry in roundball. Pearl has also proven to me he can do it. Grant has shown me he can’t stop it from happening. This will be the first game played in Auburn I have missed in years. I’ll be honest as possible. I just don’t want to be up close and personal when it happens. I’m not discounting a chance the Tide can win because Auburn doesn’t have a lot of talent, but I bet the Tigers will remove the last vestige of Bama’s basketball supremacy.

Like him or not, he's a good coach

Pearl and his Tigers almost beat Bama at home…

        ‘Bama edged out the Tigers in Tuscaloosa by a single bucket. Bruce Pearl slowed down the pace with a 7 point lead, and Grant somehow got Alabama’s defense to play even harder. Grant walked off the floor the winner. Pearl walked off the floor having given the Tide a warning of what was coming in the near future. The near future will likely start on Tuesday night. As long as Pearl coaches at Auburn, and as long as Grant remains at Alabama, a new state king will be crowned. When Pearl first arrived at Auburn I was concerned. My feeling was he would make a big splash, get a better offer, and move on. Gratitude can cause a lot of unique behavior. Pearl my just stay at Auburn for the rest of his career. That would be a marvelous thing for Auburn. I don’t have to tell you what it would do in Tuscaloosa. Pearl had a top 20 class without ever taking with a single recruit due to his show cause status. Grant has had six years to blanket the state and build a recruiting base that would have been bedrock sound. It didn’t happen. We lost the best player in the state to UAB. Then we lost the state’s best player to Auburn. That young man lived less than an hour to campus, and grew up an Alabama fan. Just for a little salt in the wound his final two choices were Kentucky and Auburn. He chose Auburn. I know a lot of Tide fans will say ‘you know how he did it’. You got any proof?

Three things could happen on Tuesday night…

Captain Levi Randolph needs to take charge

     Three things could happen in Auburn tomorrow night. First, Bama could upset the Tigers. Second, the Tide might play well and lose, and finally, it could be an old fashion whipping. It really doesn’t matter. Anthony Grant is about as relevant to Alabama now as an ant walking across an interstate highway. I suspect the vast number of Alabama fans look at this upcoming game as a win-win situation. If we beat AU it’s great. If we lose, then it is just more of a reason to get rid of his brand of coaching. I’ve even heard a number of Alabama fans badmouthing Pettway. That’s how bad things have become. I understand that the loss of Ricky Tarrant hurt in the Vandy game. It hurt in the State game also. What we witnessed in the Vandy game was a team that may have well have given up on their coach. You rarely hear booing in Coleman Coliseum. You did on Saturday night and it wasn’t directed at the players. At least I hope they understood that. Tide fans left that game disgusted, angry, and bewildered.

Now way to express the importance of Tuesday…

Rodney needs to shoot more 3's

   

   Tomorrow night is the single most important game in the recent history of Alabama basketball. It has nothing to do with Grant. He is just dusting off his Tomb for future use. This game is a possible long term changing of the guard. Basketball is a funny sport in that you can get a couple of great players and turn you program around. Look at the Final Four groups. You see a lot of teams that did that and never came back. What you also can see are teams that come back frequently because they haven’t tarnished their brand names. Let Auburn beat Alabama four or five times in succession and kiss the program goodnight for a decade. Or should we say another decade? Wlle all want our team to be archrival Auburn. I hope that our AD understands that the fans are finished withR Anthony Grant regardless. I asked someone the other day how supporters do you think Grant has left?  I’m pulling for the Tide 100% regardless of who coaches them. Not everyone feels that way. It is hard to write that you want a coach replaced. It is even harder when you thought he might bring back the magic of Alabama hoops. Instead, we got a curse put on us.