Crimson Red Sports

Well, we stink so far against C. Southern. 24-23 Tide at the half. Our RPI is 100, theirs is 145. Releford being held out of game for unknown injury and Jacobs left early with shoulder injury.



 :popcorn2:

Jacobs is "wearing" a brace on his right shoulder & trying to play. I've never heard of a shoulder brace.


 ???

33-32 Tide, timeout. Exciting as watching paint dry.



 :yawn:

Obasohan 18 points & 6 rebounds
Cooper     11 points & 6 rebounds ( 2-3 pointers)

8 minutes left
Tide 41  CSU 34

Cooper hits 3rd 3 pointer in-a-row. Tide 44 CSU 36, 7 minutes left, timeout

48-40 Tide 4 minutes left. Obasohan 18 points & 8 rebounds (and he's 6'1") Cooper 16 points & 7 rebounds



 :clap:

1:45 left. Tide 54-44 CSU. Key at FT line.
Obasohan 20 points
Cooper     16
Jacobs       7


Key hits 1/2 FT's. Tide 55-44

Tide 59-44 Final.

I was there, my first game since Gottfried's last game. The team was nearly lifeless and the crowd was worse.  As usual they were solid defensively but inept on offense. I had hope for a good season a month ago, right now I'm expecting nothing more than another NIT appearance.

It wasn't a pretty game to watch as Charlston threw a good zone defense at Bama and it's never pretty when that happens. Charlston had a very good shooting team, averaging 92 points a game so it was Bama's goal to play a good tight defense and they did that by limiting them to half of their scoring average.

Jacobs seemed to strain the injured shoulder fighting for a rebound and they put an elastic wrap on his shoulder to help stabilize his movement of it. He didn't seem to favor it any after the injury. Releford is another story and the link below will explain his injury.

The game Tuesday night will be a tough one as undefeated Wichita State comes to town. The students are out of school so hopefully the crowd will be better than last night to support the team.

http://www.al.com/alabamabasketball/index.ssf/2013/12/lingering_hip_aggravation_side.html#incart_river_default

If you are going to be there Tuesday night let me know, maybe we can meet up before the game and chat a bit. I always like to meet the CRS members when it's possible.

I would love to but unfortunately my flight back to Asia departs at 1:00 AM Tuesday.  Hopefully I'll be able to watch the game during the long layover in Seoul. 

And it's only fair to mention that the team would probably have performed better if Releford had played and Jacobs hadn't gone out.  Still, the team's performance this year has not been what I'd hoped for going into the season.  I thought finally having several guys who had been with Grant for 3-4 years and having a little more depth would lead to increased performance, but sadly not yet.

I happened to be looking right at Jacobs when he went out with the injury.  It looked like minor contact on his right arm, just the normal bumping and touching that takes place in the paint, but he immediately grabbed his shoulder and started walking to the bench obviously in pain.  When he came back in the second half he missed some shots right around the rim but did make a few crucial free throws. 

Right now, even that may be a hopeful thought. Our next 10 games include:

Wichita State  8-0  RPI 11
Xavier           8-3  RPI 70
UCLA             8-1  RPI 32
Vandy            5-3  RPI 100       
Missouri         9-0  RPI 24
Florida           7-2  RPI 28
LSU               6-2  RPI 47

To make matters worse, Tennessee & Ole Miss are looking improved and we play Florida twice. This could be a long, ugly season.

I think Bama will make the NIT.  I'm not expecting NCAA at this point.

No. 14 Baylor beat this same team 69-64 at home. Baylor is 8-1 with their only loss to Syracuse.

We won by 15 with our best player on the bench.

I think we will finish non conference play at 7-6. Wichita St at home and UCLA on the road will be difficult but we should win the rest. We can go 11-7 in SEC play. That would be 18-13 which is good enough for the NIT and the NCAA bubble.

Don't give up on the team too early.

I think Bama needs a big non-conference win, Wichita St or UCLA, to get into the NCAA Tournament.

I definitely have not given up, but things are not looking good. We still have the same problems, no outside shooting game, no inside game/poor rebounding except for Obasohan, too much fouling, too much dribbling etc. We REALLY need to beat Wichita State & either Xavier or UCLA. Plus we play Missouri & Florida twice this year. It will be a tall order to go 11-7 in conference, unless we beat all the bottom-feedes, and can pull some upsets which won't get us into the NCAA. This will be Grant's huge challenge.


 :tinfoil:

Realtime RPI projects the winner and scores of all games. The attached link shows how they expect our season to unfold. They have us going 17-13 (They do not count Div II Stillman) and 11-7 in SEC.

http://realtimerpi.com/rpi_352_Men.html

Great link, thanks. I am still concerned even after looking at the site. They have us with a 1 point victory over Florida, a 3 point victory over Missouri, 2 points over Arkansas, 3 points over LSU, 5 over Tennessee,
& 4 points over Ole Miss, all home games for Bama. I have big doubts about beating Florida & Missouri. It's going to get interesting. Plus, what kind of injury does Releford have? Will it be a nagging, all year injury or what?

 :popcorn2: