Algie Key brings some aggressive play to Bama...

Key brings some real intangibles to the Tide...

      I have to admit that a junior college player who shot around 15% from behind the three-point line wasn't real high on my wish list. After watching several videos of Key, I understood what Grant saw. You may or may not remember Amp Murry who helped launch 'Bama to national prominence under CM Newton.  For the younger Tide fans here is a quick summary of Murray. He was a terrible shooter and one of the greatest guards I've ever seen. He would steal your jock strap and you'd have no idea it happened until you felt the draft. He could wreck a press, or create his own one man press. The best thing an offensive player could do when being guarded by Amp was to pass the ball quickly, and then go stand in the corner like a scolded child.

  

  Key brings a lot of those same skills to Bama. He is probably a better scorer than Murray. He may not be quite the defender as Amp, but the similarities are striking. If Algie could bring half of what the greatest point guard in Alabama history brought, then he is going to be a great player. Time will tell but I'll go on record to say this - this same reckless play and hard nose attitude are there. We'll have to wait and see. Key is twice the defensive player that Lacey was in the press. All he needs is some time to adapt to 'Bama's system. When that happens we will have one dynamic ball player. He could be the type player that opposing players think "oh no, not Key." One of advantages of seeing over a thousand Bama games is that it gives you some real perspective, and a little insight in comparing players over the decades of time. Let's be clear - Key is not going to be the reincarnation of Murray. He doesn't have to be. Close will be good enough if he can bring the same things to the floor, and I believe he will be able to do so. Key averaged almost 18 points a game and 7 assists an outing last year at Barton CC. He shot 15% from the floor, and considering he shot just under 15% from the arc. Quick, fast, aggressive, and he finds a way to score. He is an Anthony Grant player. I'd give him 4 stars...

Kessens brings much needed inside play and Bama gets a new player...

Kessens Picks the Tide to finish his career…

 

Kessons grabs rebound against Creighton

    Anthony Grant rang the bell when he convinced Michael Kessens of Longwood University via Switzerland to transfer to ‘Bama.  Kessons was 6-9 when he transferred to Alabama. He may be even taller today. This young man is going to be one heck of a player for the Crimson and White. He averaged a double-double at Longwood where he was a marked man by opposing defenses. Kudos for Longwood coaches for recognizing he needed to find a “better” program to showcase his skills and to hopefully take the next step to the professional ranks.  It was the Longwood coaches who first brought Alabama to his attention. It was Grant and the SEC that sealed the deal for the Tide. By the way he had 17 and 11 against Arkansas.

     The first thing you notice about Kessens is his great foot work, and ability to get his hips around defenders. This speaks to his inherit ability as an athlete, and a back ground as a soccer player. So where will he fit in on the team?  It depends on a couple of factors. How much will he grow, and how strong can he become with a solid weight lifting program? He is a power forward right now, but it is possible he can be a post player. My personal belief is he will remain a power forward because he can run the floor as well as mix it up on the inside. In watching some video it is clear he can finish off plays around the basket. He is very mobile. That mobility will help him in the SEC both on the open floor and around the basket. I have no doubt he’d be a starter this season if he was eligible. He would also have proven capable of playing up to Grant's defensive expectations. He’s that good. I’d rate him as a HHHH star player. Contrary to popular thought – four star players don’t just fall off trees. A real four star player is a valuable commodity. Alabama found such a player in Michael Kessons. Maybe it would be fair to say that Kessens found Alabama.
 

Bama gets their first 2015 commitment… 

 

     J.J. Jackson has some ties with Alabama. The Montgomery George Washington Carver coach played for Wimp Sanderson at Alabama. He was much admired and was a crowd favorite. When one of his star players, Brandon Austin, announced he was going Crimson in 2015 it marked JJ’s first player to say he’s Bama bound. He is 6-5 and can jump out of the gym. Rocket man so to speak. Jackson was happy he chose Bama but heretofore the coach has seen four of his players head west to Mississippi State.
 

    A lot will be made from the fact that Austin was the sixth man for the talented Carver team. That was last season. In the future that will be different. Jackson asked Austin to come off the bench to allow his seniors to start.  They were all talented but so is Austin. We’ll have more from him next week. I’ve arranged an interview with him if all goes as plans. This kid has long arms and a reach of a seven foot player. He and Levi should get along well with their matching dreadlocks.  Austin is a perfect fit for Grant’s defensive scheme and his ability to get to the rim. He’s not ranked a three star player, for now. Look for that fourth star at season’s end.

Pros:  great jumper, great body control, fierce rebounder and competitor, good scorer
Cons: Needs some work with ball handling, needs some work on defensive intensity.

Upside:  good person, good student, better than advertised, level headed, good court
            court sense, could swing between two and small forward if needed...

Later this week:  Algie Key...

Crimson Hoops brought to you by:

Industrial Park
Bham, Alabama...
 

Mitchell brings offense, defense, and quickness to Tide backcourt...

   

  Coach Bobby Knight once told me the best way to determine how good a kid might be is to look at who else is recruiting him. If that's true, and General usually is, then Devin Mitchell, the 6-4 guard from Suwanee, Georgia might be the best recruit the Tide got early. Most services list him as a 4 star player. No argument from me on that rating. A few have him as a three. You aren't a three star player when every SEC has offered or contacted you. Throw in a few other schools like Xavier, Butler, Virginia, and you get the idea of just how many choices the young man had. He chose Anthony Grant and Alabama. He says he likes the way Alabama plays basketball, and with the departure of Trevor Lacey he thought about early playing time. He is a much better shooter than Lacey. He can shoot the three off a pass, or can create his own spacing. As an added bonus he can take it inside and has explosiveness to finish. He weighs only "around 180" but is working hard to put on some muscle.

    

Let's set aside a rumor or two here. A lot of Tide fans thought it might be better to sign Tadric Jackson over Devin. Not true, Bama wanted Mitchell and his explosivness from the start. His quickness and long wing span (seriously long) make him perfect defender in Grant's system. Those long arms are going to find a lot of shots over out matched defenders. This season the Tide has gotten committments from three of the top players in the country. Another will add his name to the list in a month or so. Look for the Tide to hear from William Lee, the 6-9 power forward from Plantersville.  That's down in Dallas County. Lee was the Class AAAA Player of the Year. Here are some absolutely crazy numbers for the big man.  He averaged 19 points per game, 17 rebounds per game, and tossed 5 assists an outing. Alabama, Georgia, Auburn, Notre Dame, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Utah are a few wanting his signature. He grew up pull for the Tide. Lee's not a completely done deal, but I'd be surprised if he wasn't wearing Crimson in the near future. He might be the best player in the state.

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Birmingham, Alabama

Grant brings home a winning class with one more to follow...

         That highly ineffective recruiter, Anthony Grant, has seen his Tide hit the # 6 according to several national sites that follow recruiting. We have one more big fish to reel in, and expect that to happen much sooner than later. For all the nay sayers regarding Riley Norris you'd best eat your crow and move on. The tall slender kid from Albertville, Alabama has an unlimited shooting range and ceiling at Bama. He's a perfect fit for Grant's system. He is a deadly accurate shooter from anywhere inside the gym. He can create and he can jump. Here's a little insight into another reason Grant signed him - is is also a good defense player all ready. He has the wing span of a condor. Those who know him well also say he has a big heart and a level head. His 6-8 frame will
allow him to just shoot over most defenders. In watching him in a couple of camps he seems to have two distinct shots - one is dead in with nothing but nylon, and the other the other may, on occasion, graze the iron before falling. He can also drive to the hoop and is a very good passer. He can put the ball on the floor and runs like a much smaller man. Most services rate him as a four star player, and that's about right. I had some concerns about the quality of competition, but after watching him perform at camps those fears have abated. He was the clear go to guy in a lot of trips down the floor. I'm sure that a segment of our fans will continue to say he can't play and why did Bama offer him?  Ask Billy Donovan the same question. I'm sure that Donovan is not happy losing Norris, but happy that Grant got him. Give this kid a good weight program and he'll make All-SEC.

   Justin Coleman is not very tall at 5-11.  He doesn't weigh very much at 175. What he does have is blazing speed and quickness which you have to see to believe. He can shoot the eyes out of the rim and can thread the proverbial needle with his interior passing. When Justin is on the floor the term press doesn't apply. The ball looks like its attached to a string. He can do it all in terms of providing an offense and being an offensive leader. With Releford leaving he'll get instant minutes, will be an All-Freshman player and will capture the imagination of Crimson Tide fans. He's one of the smooth little point guards that come along every decade or so in Alabama. Most fans believe that Bama beat out Auburn to get the point guard. Not true. Auburn recruited him hard but in the long run Kansas State came the closest. He picked 'Bama in large part because of Grant. Same can be said for Riley Norris as well. Bama has James "Hollywood" Robinson. Make room for Justin "the showman" Coleman. Only in a blue moon does a point guard come along who has the court sense that Coleman possesses. Mark it down - he's Bama's next great point guard.



Next:  Mitchell and one more...

The State of our Program...

   

     Maybe it’s a good time to have a ‘state of the program’ article. It has been very interesting to read what many posters have to say about Anthony Grant. Views of how the Coach has done to date are widely diverse. One of the favorite games of Alabama fans like to play is finding fault. Funny thing about finding fault is that no objective standard exists.

         The football team has won three of the last four national championships. Fans who post negative things about Grant are sometimes illogical at best. If you applied their standard of review they should admit two of those three national football championships were luck. After all, we had to hope and pray that teams rated higher than Bama lost a game. Those losses were essential to Tide chances for a berth to play in the national championship game. The teams we needed to lose did just that.       

 

 

    Alabama football was the recipient of some good luck. That doesn’t mean that the Tide football team wasn’t the best team in the NCAA those two years.  They probably were the best, but they were one of the luckiest.  Luck, good or bad, is a part of any sport. A good kicker misses a short field goal. A receiver drops a pass. A blade of grass bends just so and a winning putt drops.

     To use an old saying – if it wasn’t for bad luck Anthony Grant would have no luck whatsoever. I think most of us would agree with that. Good luck isn’t always the residue of hard work. Sometimes it makes me believe that luck is like stepping on a snake. That’s bad news but it can become good news if it isn’t a rattlesnake. The state of Alabama basketball isn’t great. It’s isn’t nearly as bad as some anti-Grant wants you to believe. It’s almost as if some of our fans hope that Grant fails. Even in the dark days of Coach Gottfried I can’t remember hoping that the Tide lost.     

   

    What would you think if Alabama lost T.J. Yeldon and A.J. McCarron?  No good thoughts. Grant lost Pollard and Lacey. He lost Mitchell.  That is three good players, and that’s big blow for any team. I don’t buy into the school of thought that Grant caused Lacey (or the other two) to leave. I won’t go as far as saying good riddance, but Lacey was given every chance to play the shooting guard and the point. He failed (for the most part) at both. Pollard decided that he had more important things to do than play basketball. Mitchell was immature and arrogant. Each of these players failed in many ways. To say that Grant caused them to fail is just untrue. One of the few problems I’ve ever had with Grant was the way he seemingly pampered Lacey. I’ve long believed that Randolph and Cooper could be better players. Moussa Gueye left. The big African just wasn’t an SEC caliber basketball player on the offensive end. The Big Swede got hurt. He was improving by leaps and bounds. Retin is a better player right now than Lacey was all season long. At the end of the season he got more minutes than Lacey and he earned them. Maybe Lacey saw the writing on the wall. I hate we lost him but he will not be greatly missed by this writer.   

 

     None of the above means that Alabama isn’t having some problems. We are definitely having some problems.  The top 6A Player in the State just signed with UAB. I don’t like that. He had a conditional offer. I’d rather miss on a few in state players, but let our in state players know they can play at Alabama when they graduate. I’d like all good in state players to assume they are going to Alabama. They don’t have to be great. Jim Farmer wasn’t highly rated when he finished high school. He turned out to be a hidden gem. Grant has shown us that he can get the best players in the southeast to visit. Now he needs to sign a few of them. Second best at the poker table is worst luck of all. We need to start signing some of these national stars or think of a different recruiting strategy. One or two players can make a program work.

 

 

       I wonder how successful CM Newton would have been if he had lost Leon Douglas, or would David Hobbs still be our head coach if Antonio McDyess had stayed another year or two at Alabama. Sometimes bad things happen to good coaches, and Grant has had his share. How many times has Bama been to the NCAA in the last decade? Which coach got us there? It was absolute stupidity for Hootie Ingram to have fired Wimp Sanderson. I believe that Grant is the first “great” hire since the plaid one departed. Wimp Sanderson was the most under appreciated coach in America during his tenure at ‘Bama. We aren’t close to the Wimp era yet, but we aren’t that far away either.  There seems to be this belief that Bama underachieved last season. Honestly, are you kidding me? That rag tag bunch played with heart and duct tape. Whine about Grant if you wish, but last season’s rendition of the Crimson Tide overachieved.

    

    I have personally spoken with nine top prospects who are seriously considering Alabama. A couple of week’s ago I drove over to Georgia to get some background to do an article on two kids who have Bama in their top two. Those two players would maker a huge difference. But, we have to sign them. Enter Pettway for that purpose.  Having Pettway as a full time recruiter is going to make a difference.  Bama has some inherient problems that they must address and that is obvious:

 

1.       Grant needs to be more accessible to the fans. Cool Hand Luke is one thing, but being a overtly stoic is another;

 

2.      We are first and foremost a football school. I don’t care what anyone says but Bama is a unique job. It is a tough job. We need someone like Grant who can carry that on his shoulders.

 

3.      Alabama needs fans to help sustain the program. I’ve seen over 1100 hundred Alabama games. Start early, start now to attend games.
 

4.      The University needs to hire a publicity person to promote basketball. I’ve said that for decades. Winning cures a lot of attendance problems, but we need a personal commitment from all bb fans to step up their game. People like Bunk and Randall are great examples. It appears that Bunk has been given some type of asylum in Texas but he still comes to games.  

5.      Nick Saban needs to offer some of his personal clout with recruits, the program and getting the Tide some more good home games. Let’s do some home and away football games with UCLA and Arizona. We’ll play you in football but you’ve got to come to Coleman on a two for one home game contract.

 6.      We have a decent basketball facility if you sailed over on the Mayflower. The UofA should be ashamed to expect be time basketball in Tuscaloosa without a comparable floor of Arkansas, Florida, and other big time programs.  ESPN has changed the landscape of expectations of recruits. It’s hard to sign a Rolls-Royce player and ask him to play in a Chevy.

 

7.      It is my personal belief that our basketball games have become more like carnivals than serious athletic events. I’m sorry; I don’t give a tinker’s damn watching cartoons of car races. The winner gets 50 bucks. That brings in exactly zero fans. Let the students shoot from half court for a year’s tuition.  Give regular patrons frequent flyer miles.  Discounts on food and drinks for those who attend games.  Let a couple of fans sit on the end of the bench.

        There are a lot of programs who have become successful with less. Butler and Gonzaga come to my mind. So how did they do that? First, they made a commitment to recruit four or five year players. Second, they sold basketball to their fan base. Here’s an example I can speak to personally. When Creighton and Alabama were going to play in the NCAA I got an invitation to give a couple of speeches about Alabama’s program to Creighton boosters and fans. 

   

  

Our program is in good hands. There are no “feel good pills” to giver fans when your program bottomed out under a prior coach. I can still recall all the flack when I said it would take a minimum of five years to get back to being a competitive program. We have been competitive since the day Anthony Grant landed in Tuscaloosa.  He did that with a lot less than most coaches had in the armory.  So I am going to make this prediction – in three seasons we will be a top ten program, and people will sing to angels on high about Grant.  But to do that it will take cohesion and support from the fan base. Those of you who know me understand that I am not afraid to put my personal basketball reputation on the line. I supported Mark Gottfried with all I had until it became obvious a change had to be made. I’ll do the same with Anthony Grant. The time has not come. All good things come to those who wait.  There is one thing that Alabama fans don’t have and that is patience. Bill Battle does. So did Mal Moore. Those guys know more than me.

Will Grant ever catch a break?

Lacey and Pollard are quite the pair...

 

          Kiddnapping? Seriously?    Is some type of dark stormy cloud  following Anthony Grant?  The Devonta Pollard story is so bizarre it is almost unbelievable.  Trevor Lacey leaves Alabama for better coaching?  And he considers North Carolina State as his next stop?  Excuse me while I pick myself up off the floor from my laughter attack. The laughter is about Lacey not Pollard. Nothing funny there.

       I’m not going to say anything bad about the character of both these players but they have something in common – classic underachievers. Beyond that, it would be difficult to compare the two. Maybe Pollard was so concerned about his pending indictment he couldn’t concentrate on basketball at Bama. I do know that both these players are so pumped full of sunshine about their abilities, it hinders their ability to think of themselves with any objectivity.  I’m concerned about Pollard.  I’m just disgusted with Lacey.  Frankly, Pollard was a monumental bust. Lacey was a huge disappointment in more ways than one.  I met Pollard’s mother once. Once was enough. Devonta had it rough growing up in his household.  Lacey didn’t. It’s pretty obvious that Pollard does what his mother tells him to do. I think Pollard is somewhat a victim. I also think the Department of Justice is going to have a hard time convicting him of kidnapping or conspiracy. This kidnapping story is so interwoven with family matters, feuds, and stupidity it is almost hard to imagine it really happened. I think Pollard should get a second chance and I think Grant should try to help him get that chance. Pollard is not a criminal in the evil sense but is afraid of his mother, and does what she tells him to do. The hard fact is that young black men in America go to prison in disproportionate numbers, and that doesn’t bode well for him. Criminal behavior cannot be overlooked, and I'm not suggesting that Pollard and Lacey are cut from the same cloth. I am suggesting both used poor judgement.

 

      The best thing might be to send the mother to prison and let Pollard get on with his life under strict supervision. I don’t know if he will ever play basketball at Alabama again. I do know that there could be no better influence on his behavior than Anthony Grant. If it was left up to me, I’d let him play again. There would be a lot of conditions attached to his return, but this is a young man whose life is worth saving. It is going to be very interesting to see what happens. I am of the opinion that Alabama has a chance to make a real statement about education here. It might not occur in the classroom.  America is a nation of second chances. It would be expedite to just dump the kid. Let’s hope that doesn’t happen. 

 

  

   Lacey said the other day that he thought most Alabama fans understood and supported his decision to leave the Capstone. Trevor, what planet are you from? I don’t think people wish you any ill will,  but you betrayed your school and teammates. I’m old school. You just don’t do that.  I understood why some players transfer. A lot of kids see little playing time in their mind for the next season and they want to play.  Hankerson is a great example. Gueye might have seen the same thing happen, but the tall one just doesn’t fit in Alabama’s offense at any rate. Lacey seems to be a nice person. This transfer might say more about his family than it does the player.

       Grant bent over backwards to accommodate Lacey’s development. He allowed Lacey to share the point position if Trevor Releford.  If anything, I learned two things about Lacey this season. One is that he isn’t a point guard, and second, is that his outside shooting is so inconsistent it negates his value. I thought that Bama was a much better team late in the season when Obasahan started to play well. The increased time Obasahan received was at Lacey’s expense. Lacey’s parents asked Grant to give Trevor a chance at the point prior to the start of last season. He was given that chance.  It wasn’t helpful and it certainly wasn’t  pretty as we all watched Lacey struggle.  And then, in the midst of this point guard “experiment” his outside shooting went south.  Not just a little south, but deep-south. His turnovers went up. He became sloppy with his ball handling. The only thing that Lacey excelled in was hard nosed defense. That’s kind of ironic isn’t it? At least he has defense to take with him to North Carolina State (if he lands there). Just for the record, NCState gave up 71 points per game last season. Alabama gave up 58 ppg. Maybe Lacey can be the stud defender. That’s kind of funny to think that State might be recruiting him more for defense than offense. That is probably not true but it is worth mentioning.

       Here’s some cold hard truth. Alabama’s two five star recruits averaged less than 15 points a game together last season. Lacey has some good skills. Mainly, he understands basketball. That lets him play at a higher level than his talent. Pollard is a complete enigma to me on the basketball floor. Now he’s carried that enigma into the real world.

    I have this book. It’s entitled, WHEN BAD THINGS HAPPEN TO GOOD PEOPLE. Maybe Coach G has a copy. I hope so. He needs it.

Coach Moore takes a promotion...

   

  Excuse me for not posting an article about our last basketball game.  A great man, Mal Moore, has moved on from this world to the next. I’m sure as much as we will grieve his passing, old friends at his next stop will be happy to see him again.  In trying to express what Coach Moore meant to my family simply cannot be done. I knew him as an AD, a confidant at times, and a friend.

 

The last time we spoke was at the formal opening of the Mal and Charlotte Moore Caring Days Center in Tuscaloosa. My wife’s family is but one of very many whose lives have been affected by Alzheimer’s disease. Her father, A.E. spends time every week at the Center.  

Coach Moore’s personal struggle with the disease is a story not known to many because he chose not to talk about it much. His wonderful wife, Charlotte, died in 2010 after fighting against the illness for 20 years. I find it remarkable that anyone who cared for someone suffering from this long slow death could accomplish the things he did. That’s who Mal Moore was and that is how he will be remembered. He was a true hero in every sense of the word, although he would remind us that merely doing the right thing is not courageous.

His remarks the day of the ceremony differed greatly from the remarks most of us hear. We hear him as an Athletic Director.  That day, all of us heard him as a husband, a father, and a man genuinely touched by the people who turned out to honor him and his late wife.  I’ll be honest. I don’t remember all the words he spoke that day. I was touched by the gentleness of his voice, and the melancholy of his grief. My spirits were also lifted by his belief that things will get better for Alzheimer’s patients. Here was a man who carried a heavy burden even as he helped return Alabama to greatness. Of all the things he did while he was AD,  the most profound thing he did had nothing to do with his job. No, it  was how he helped his wife for two decades while she was ill that separates him from a lot of us.

After the speech and inside the center we chatted a few minutes about what his contribution to Living Well meant to our family. He expressed what it meant to him to be involved. He pointed out his grandchildren, son in law, and daughter. Here was a man who loved his family and you could see the pride he held for each of them.

The last words Coach Moore ever said to me were so much like the words I’d heard before, “Bill, thank you for coming here today and being a part of all this.” He said it with the sincerity that is just a part of who he was. He was still the boy whose mother had “raised up right.” He was a man who was burdened by so much and yet blessed with much at the same time. He was a man whose grave stone could read, “Here lies a man who everyone loved” and it would be perfectly true.  

I remember the time we talked about Mike Price. He was catching a lot of fire from certain alums. I said Mike was a great hire. We were lucky to have him and that in my opinion he would make all of us proud. We know how all that ended. None of those problems were the fault of Coach Moore. But he felt so much of a burden it saddened everyone to see him so down and out.

A year or so after the Price firing we sat down and talked on the sideline of the basketball court while the teams warmed up. “Coach, he was a good hire, and a heck of a coach. You only hire them, you can’t raise them.” He chuckled, said thanks, shook my hand and said give me a call next week. I called him soon after, and many times after that. It was always about basketball. I wish I’d had to common sense to talk about so much more. Time is precious. The days go by so slowly but years stream by  quickly. I will miss him. He was a great Athletic Director but an even greater human being.  I think maybe our University is getting some bonus points from Heaven because of how he was and how he treated everyone he came into contact with. Anytime you talked with Coach Moore you felt better.  He listened to what you had to say. He cared. I am not sure that there are truly words to define greatness. I know that if someone asked me I’d say “be like Mal Moore”.  His greatness was measured not by the things he did for Alabama, but the character of who he was as a man.