Tide finishes strong to beat Missouri 62-49…

Levi Randolph leads team with 20 points…

Hale as his best all-around game…

Obasahan played will in Tarrant absence….

   

Midcourt

  Style points aren’t necessary to win basketball games. What Missouri and Alabama did on Wednesday night was not a thing of beauty, but both teams played hard. Alabama just played a little better in the last ten minutes. Randolph scored a team high 20, and Retin Obasahan filled in admirably for Ricky Tarrant. Retin played the defensive end of the floor like a man possessed. His leadership was a key in leading the Tide to a win. The Tide is now 14-8 overall, and now heads to Baton Rouge for a big SEC game with the Tigers. Look for LSU to be around a 8 point favorite. The win moves Alabama to 4-5 in the conference. Those three two point league losses loom large as the Tide tries to cobble together enough wins to make the NCAA (unlikely) or the NIT (possibly).

Tide not a smooth operator on defense…

      The Tide wasn’t smooth on the offensive end, but they played well on defense holding the Tigers to only 32% shooting on 56 attempts from the floor. Here’s a stat that might cause Tide fans some real worry. Alabama only attempted 39 shots for the game. That is an almost unheard of number in college basketball these days. The Tide made 44% of those shots. The deciding number was the foul line. The Tide connected on 24-34 free throws. That was a decent 70% but a lot of points were left off the board, and what would have been an easy win has some fairly tense moments until the last 8 minutes. Levi Randolph score 10 of Alabama’s last 12 points. He finished his night with a monster jam off a Hale to Obasahan behind the back pass.

     Once again the Tide held their opponent to under 50 points. That is a remarkable state. When you have watched Pete Maravich drop 69 on your team in one game, the number 49 seems almost impossible. How much of that is attributable to the actual defense is an interesting question. A good portion of that number has to do with the famed Alabama slow down offense. After teasing Alabama fans with a faster offensive tempo early on in the season, Grant has chosen to return to an offense that most closely looks like out-takes from Dawn of the Dead. Don’t get me wrong, a win is a win, but these games reminds me of having a root canal. It’s absolutely necessary to be there, but it’s not much fun. My old dentist used to pump up the Grateful Dead while he worked. That is probably the most fitting description of watching us win. I’ve never really cared much about the style of play. My thoughts were always along the lines of just win. I also think that Grant is so talent poor, he has determined slow down ball is the best way he can win. Still, it is boring to watch. I just don’t think this team can win running and gunning.

 Cooper shuts down Williams…

     Missouri is not a very talented team, but they were well coached. They had only ten turnovers and missed a lot of good looks. Johnathan Willams III, had only 7 points. He made an early three, but the 6-7 Rodney Cooper shut down the 6-9 Williams after that. He did it by ball denial, and that was fun to watch. When Bama switched to zone in the second half, a Tide defender was always in his face. That is one reason that Missouri got a lot of good inside looks. Kessens, Taylor, and Hale contested a lot of those inside shoots with great results. Missouri was not making a lot of shots, but they didn’t always get good looks. The Tide defense caused a lot of confusion in the Tiger offense. At times, Missouri just looked plain confused on offense. The Crimson cut off a lot of passing lanes, denied back door plays, and got the shot clock down to the fumes only area. So Alabama keeps a slight crack open in the door for an NCAA bid. That's not likely but we can all hope. I'm thinking a few more wins and we get a home host bid to the NIT