Tide faces a must-win game tonight
A&M is a slight favorite...

   

 I've always hated the term must-win. It seems so dramatic and overstated. Tonight the unranked Crimson Tide hosts the Aggies of Texas A&M that might actually fall into that category.   As much as I hate to say must-win Tide has lost two home games. A third home loss wouldn't be the end of the world or would it?  We can look at today's game in two ways. We are not playing well and the best team we play will hit the hardwood tonight. That is a recipe for disaster. That is one way to view the game tonight Johnson is not worried about A&M. He is concerned about his own team.  So what can you say that favors the Tide in tonight's tip-off?  How about we have a great opportunity to beat the 5th rated team in the nation which will be without their top scorer. We catch them in Tuscaloosa. And a win would be a great catalyst to get the SEC season off to a tsunami-start.  Take your pick. There isn't much else to consider today. 

    It can't be that time of the year, can it? It is still December and monumental games can't be this early can they? The can if you have taken a couple of home court losses. Both A&M and 'Bama have excellent RPI's at this time. Bama is 33rd and A&M checks in at #8. A&M has a strength of schedule of 48. The Tide is much better at 11th.  Each of those numbers tells me that both teams are in the NCAA field right now. 'Bama is on the edge looking in or hanging on not to fall out of the field. The Aggies will still be a top 10 team win or lose today. Bama should regain a spot in the AP top 25. The poll means nothing. It is all about the Selection Committee looking at numbers. Teams have to pass the eye test but it is namely about stats in today's world.  That is why a third home floor loss could be detrimental.

     D.J. Hogg, the Aggie's leading scorer is suspended for tonight's game. He was the leading scorer for Texas A&M.  Savion  Flagg, who has been Freshman of the Week for his last two games will likely take his place.Flagg has averaged over 17 points in the last two games. TAM is number 5 in one and number 6  in another. The Aggies are big and very physical. I'm sure that Johnson is going to start Key and his biggest role tonight is to rebound the ball. 

     Alabama has enough talent plus a home court advantage to win this game. Will they? It is really hard to say. The Tide has lost 4 games. One was a bizarre game with Minnesota. If you want to know how good Mo Bambo really is, go to Youtube and watch him dismantle the inside Kansas Jayhawks. Kansas made 17 three-points to win that game.  The Tide lost a stinker Central Florida on their home floor. That loss hurt. The Tide has lost three of their last five games. No shame in losing to Arizona. A lot of teams will. Then Texas dropped a bomb on the Tide which showed some interior weakness and a lack of ball movement. It also might serve as a blueprint on how to beat the Tide. The Longhorns double teamed Collin Sexton. John Petty answered the bell, but other Tide players didn't show up that night.

I hope the Tide wins. Logic says it is A&M. I think the home court advantage and the lose of Hogg gives Crimson and White a chance. The Tide by 2.

'BAMA NEEDS GOOD START TO SEC ...

Tide needs Key to settle down and just play

 

Johnson needs to win this one.

  I think it is a fair statement to say there has been a lot of disappointment registered by Tide fans over Bama's pre-season SEC finish. Whether or not that disappointment is warranted remains to be seen. Expectations were too high, to begin with. I'd like to suggest that all of our fans might be better served with supporting the program and giving it additional time to succeed. Johnson has some tough decisions to make in the next two weeks. The main decision is how long do you stick with Braxton Key to come around after his knee surgery? I'm not knocking Key.  For those of us who have suffered knee surgery, it is quite clear that not everyone gets back to 100%.  With Key, it appears that he is physically well, but seems to be trying too hard.  I am sure the coaches are telling him that you have to let the game come to you. You can't press it to happen. Basketball is the ultimate sport of action and reaction. There is a fine balance between forcing the issue and controlling the issue of better play. One thing that makes me believe that Key will come around is that his fundamentals are solid. Solid fundamentals always help in your game. 

Are the returning players having a hard time with the new game?

    One additional thing we should keep in mind regarding all the returning players from last season. They all played in an offense last year that was about as fast as molasses on a cold day. Now, they are being asked to run a fast-paced run and gun game. I think that all of our players from last year are having some trouble in finding exactly how they fit in. Our freshman learned the new offense from the start. All of our returning players are going to get better once they adapt to the speed of what Johnson wants them to do.

 

Time for Key to break out 

 We have some tremendous upsides. We also have some weaknesses that are easily recognized. One, we are still not solid in defending the interior. The effort is there as soon as Sexton and Petty understand that their perimeter defense sets that stage for what happens in the paint is dependant on what they do outside the quicker we improve. We are not shooting well despite getting good looks. We will have good nights and bad nights. That is the nature of the beast. A solid defense can help those poor shooting nights.  

Only one loss that should have been a W?

     If you look at the wins and losses it seems to me that the UCF game was only game we "should" have won. I would have picked Arizona and Texas to beat us anyway. I throw out Minnesota as an outlier due to the 5 on 3. That was a game we might have lost anyway. From a ranking viewpoint, the UCF game loss at home was pretty bad. Anytime you lose a home game it hurts. Texas was listed as a home game but in reality, it was a neutral site game in a lot of ways. That loss hurt us but will not keep us out of the NCAA if we finish well. 

    I picked us to be 9-3 at the break. 8-4 is not bad, and the strength of schedule will back that up. What is troubling to me is the close wins against some teams. The Tide has as the 3rd toughest SOS in the NCAA. We all need to remember that. I was disappointed with how we won some games, but we still get to ink a W by those games. In the end, the Selection Committee is not going to remember how much a team wins games by. How much you lost by is what kills you.  We finished very close to where we should be in terms of wins and losses. 

A key game with Texas A&M...

   

Hogg may not play against the Tide

 Alabama now opens SEC play with a game against Texas A&M. They are ranked as the #6 team in the latest poll. This is one of those games that might propel the Tide into a nice winning streak. Another home court loss might sting the Tide so much that they hit the skids. This might well be the biggest Avery Johnson game since he signed on with 'Bama. The Tide catches a break. D.J. Hogg, the Aggies leading scorer, will still be on a three-game suspension. A&M struggled with Buffalo in College Station for 3/4 of the game.  The Aggies then put the New York team away. 86-73. It was one of those games where last minute fouls put A&M on the line to inflate the numbers. 

     Who gave the only loss in the twelve games they have played?  Arizona, and by a similar score that the Wildcats beat the Tide. Will Alabama beat A&M? I don't know. They can beat the Aggies. To win the Tide must do three things.

1. break even or better on the boards.

2. keep turnovers down to a minimum

3. Shoot the three much better.

   If the Tide can shoot the three around 45% they should win. If not, 8-4 becomes 9-5 and that will cause a lot of questions. It may or not be put up or shut up. A loss will not be NCAA fatal. But it makes you wonder just how good this team can be. I still think we will be fine, but I'd love to see the Tide pull off an upset here. 

UPDATE: just got off the phone with a long time friend who is scouting for an NBA team. He told me that Sexton will be the first guard taken in the NBA draft. I asked him about Trae Young. Sexton and Young are the top two guards in college. Young is also a freshman and is a better shooter than Sexton. That is where the comparison stops. After that, Sexton is better in all regards. 

Sexton gets the edge because he "may be the fastest guard I've ever seen." Speed is what separates Sexton from all other guards. 


TIP OFF - SATURDAY THE 30TH AT 5 PM 

Alabama will be as good as Sexton and Key...


Some thoughts on 'Bama's offense...


 

Sexton needs some shooting help from team

   The Alabama Crimson Tide is coming off a pre-SEC on a down. They are not, however, down and out. I wonder where the team might have been had Key not been hurt. The reason I say that is because Key will get well, put some WD-40 on his rusty game, and become the player he was last season. That is when Tide fans will know just how good they can be. Basketball is a sport where finishing on a high note will frequently get you into the NCAA Tournament. A fast start and a poor finish can keep you out of the field however. 

      Clearly, the team is at a fork in the road right now. Do they continue to play average ball, or do they seek redemption and become what they would like to be. So where does the team go from here?

1.  First, keep in mind that even though the Tide lost to Texas good defense held the Longhorns to only 66 points. That will win most games for Alabama.

2. Johnson now has to make a definite decision about how he wants his offense to play. Does he still try for a modified run and shoot offense, or does he slow down pace. Seriously, this team was made to run, and even though they have sputtered in a few games it seems to me this is the way to go. 

3. I would turn Collin Sexton loose to score each trip down the floor. He is so gifted (ask Minnesota) he will score a lot of points. He will draw so much attention he will be able to dish the ball off and the Tide is going to get a lot of wide open looks.

4. A lot of teams are going to double team Sexton. Texas did that, but keep in mind they had Mo Bomba to pick up the mistakes the perimeter defenders make. Bomba drew a lot of praise from the media (well deserved) but it was their two guards who shut down Sexton that won the game.  Of course, Collin was injured and wasn't playing at full speed. 

5. The defense must become more aggressive and cause some turnovers. Fouling has been a problem in the pre-season, but this team has 10 solid players. If Johnson chooses to keep 10 players off the pine he needs to turn his defense to press. 

    There isn't anything to keep the Tide from improving. Now they need to have a system, identify the players, and hope the team chemistry improves. In my last post I elaborated on this. This team has at least three players who will play in the league at some point. They might have four. They have at least three other players who will play professional ball somewhere. 

     If Johnson decides to run all the offense through Sexton is doesn't mean that team work is out the window. It just needs to be a different type of team work.  This Tide teams needs to understand the most talent won't win all their games. Great team work will win a lot more than just physicality. I have a lot of faith in Avery Johnson. When Bama was searching for a head coach I wrote letters to the AD saying, "let's step up the program" by hiring Johnson. I think we are doing that. I'm giving Alabama an incomplete grade for their season so far. The final grade can't be judged just yet. We have played a very hard schedule thus far. It doesn't get any easier from this point forward. We will see if Johnson's pre-season gamble pays off. It will in my opinion. 

Roll Tide and Happy New Year. 

The Tide is struggling, but ...


    I'm not trying to be the Grinch who stole Christmas. This year's Alabama basketball team is not ready for prime time, at least not yet. More than anything, basketball is a sport which values team chemistry above everything else.  The Tide has some dynamic talent. What they don't have is the ability to play together. I'm not sure a coach can do anything about that. 

To date, the Alabama coach has tried to throw together every conceivable line up possible. The Tide has played 9 or 10 players in almost every game. So far none of those lineups have worked. Should we be surprised?

At the start of the season, some Tide fans tried to sound a note of caution about expectations. Lowered expectations is not something Alabama fans can deal with. I suggested on a couple of occasions that it was going to take four recruiting seasons to get things squared away on the floor. That only meant the talent level. You simply cannot predict chemistry. 

         Now our fans are starting to label this team as underachievers, or that Johnson cannot coach. I doubt either of those beliefs are true. First, Johnson is a good coach. The second thing we must keep in mind is that the Tide starts two pure freshmen, and despite what you might see on occasions, pure freshmen rarely deliver championships. The talent and coaching are present for a good plus season. So far we have proven to be a good minus team, however. The season can still be stellar. The SEC season looms and I am not sure there is one great team in the SEC. There are a lot of good ones. 

   If you look at teams that beat 'Bama a couple of things is pretty clear. If you cut the head off the snake (Collin Sexton) the rest dies. Sexton is a great player. Petty is a much better than the average player. I had a good conversation with the Dick Vitale on a layover in Atlanta once. That coach/commentator said something that has stuck with me.  "You need three good players. You need an aircraft carrier on the inside, you need a great point guard, and you need a pure shooter from the perimeter." Vitale is not very popular in the Southeast. He has become more of a showman than coach these days. The man has a first-rate mind for coaching. If you apply that standard to Alabama what do you have?  Don'ta Hall is doing a good job inside. Don't let his performance against Texas minimize his season thus far. A lot of players are going to struggle against Mo Bamba this year. I'd check off that position as more than solid. What about the point guard? Sexton is unbelievable. Not only can he score in a variety of ways, he is also very unselfish with the ball. Let's check that one off as solid. Does the Tide have a pure shooter from the arc? That is the area where the Tide may be missing a player so far. Shooters by their very nature are going to be streaky. Some nights a great shooter may stink the gym up. I think Petty is a good answer to position three, but after him, the outside shooting has been poor. I think 'Bama looked to get a lot more out of Riley Norris, and Dazon Ingram. Neither of those players has lit it up from downtown. I agree with Vital about his basketball trinity, although I'd add that you need two good outside shooters. Alabama needs to find a second great shooter. 

   You look around the nation and you see a lot of programs that survive and win on outside shooting. They may not have the best athletes, but they have a much need skill the Tide is lacking right now. If 'Bama has two outside shooters that could hit around 45% they might well be undefeated right now. Throw out the Minnesota game which was one of the greatest games I have ever seen. I've thought about that game a lot. Why did we score so well with just three players? That night it was the Collin Sexton show. The depleted Tide didn't need chemistry. They had Sexton. It was essentially a one-man show late in the game. It seems to me the Tide is stuck between letting Sexton run the show or try to get him to distribute the ball. I know what Johnson is thinking - I need to get Key ready for the SEC and take some lumps along the way.  Right now the Tide is much better when Sexton penetrates to score. He is so good at driving the lane that he gets a lot of open three point looks himself. That should work for the outside shooters as well. So far there has been no positive consistency from the downtown. I had hoped the Tide would be ready for some fine tuning. It appears we can't get the car started at this point.  But... we can.

Texas A&M is next up. The game will be in Tuscaloosa and A&M is a very good team. The Tide then hits the road for Vandy (always tough) and very improved Georgia team. Then its back home for the Gamecocks. I'd like to see the Tide start 3-1. I'm not holding my breath. It is more like keeping your fingers crossed. Merry Christmas