Crimson Red Sports

RTR

Roll Tide.

RTR

Bama 10-7

My son is hyped...says "it's awesome".  Roll Tide

SEC v. Big East

Kentucky flattened St. John's
Ole Miss leading DePaul
Bama is up

The only blemish as yet is Providence over USCe. USCe always manages to embarrass the SEC.

JG and TM leading Bama scoring--shooting about 50%-- need to ick it up a little. I've been saying, changing goals at half always helps if your cold. It works the opposite if you are not shooting well. JMHO.

21-16 Hoyas

 :(

Solid D, as always.

Our outside shooting is horrible again tonight.  We are going to have to hit some of those shots to have a good season.

 :deadhorse:

G'town shooting around 40% as a team to Bama's 30%. Inspirational stuff.

 :(

 :'(

Smirky ESPN studio (?) comment about USCe and how even they could score on the Cocks. Not necessary and as always, eastern basketball experts (a-holes) talking down the SEC BB and bragging up the teams they like. It is all to try and "get even" for football.

 >:(

D-fense

Bama is forcing OUR game on them. The difference in the 1st being shooting. But TM playing with his head on fire early in the 2nd. He and Green can both take that leadership role and it really makes a difference in our overall tempo.

G'town by 6 31-25

Let's go Bama!

Really hard to win a game against a good zone defense when you can't hit an outside bucket.  We're fighting, but we better get used to it cause we're going to see a whole lot of this in conference play and in the tourney.

And Lacy hits to put us at a respectable 1-12 on 3 pointers!  RTR!

LACEY!!!!

35-34 after three-pointer by Lacey!  #+

Bama now 1-12 on three-point shots.   >:(

Bama finally hits a 3. TR--it came at a perfect time. Bama within 1 and G'Town is panting for air. We have been controlling the game--now it is time to take charge of the scoreboard.

Lacey again! 38-37

Finally.

OM won.

Shot clock violation--TO --caused by Tide D. But couldn't score on the other end. Frustrating.

Under 2 minutes. Down 5. Comes down to shooting.

Oh my.

Roll Tide!  

(http://www.baynews9.com/images/apimages/VCU_Alabama_Basketball.sff-36da9f29-8ad4-4d59-8eb8-03f09d682b68.jpg)

Less than 1 min.  Bama down 2.  Shooting free throw.  RTR

14secs.  UA down by 1.  Bama's ball!

Bama takes 1 pt lead.  12 sec left.  GT ball. 

OMG 3 pointer.  :'(  GT 2 point lead 1.8 secs left.

no wayyyyyyyyyyyyyy   :'(

1.8 sec left.  GT up by 2.  Bama's ball.  Roll Tide.

 :(

Dayum. Great game guys. GT won it at the end with that 3 pointer @ 1,8 secs.

GT 57 - UA 55.   :(

I hate that we lost, but I love how we fought back and took the lead.  That last play was defended well.  They miss that shot 70% of the time and we win.

That 3 pointer was from 3 feet beyond the arc.  Not a defensive breakdown, it was screened by GT but still contested by Bama. 

24 game home winning streak comes to an end.

The best thing about Basketball -- unlike football, no single game (or 2 or 3 games...)  will ruin a season.  It's just one loss, a learning experience for the team before SEC play starts, and finally Trevor Lacey is starting to find his groove after this summer's surgery.

The team learned from their mistakes against this defense in the first half and played much better in the second half.

In other news, West Virginia kicks a last second field goal to beat South Florida 30-27.

Yeah. Just one loss. There will undoubtedly be others. The statistical difference was Bama hitting on 3-16 on 3s while G'town hit 7 of 17. But aside from statistics we managed to force a big inside game team to rely on perimeter shooting and contested everything that moved on our defensive end. Green will be blamed for a sub-par night by those who don't follow much basketball. He held his own against big men that probably grew up on the DC playgrounds or play on them in the off season now. Tony Mitchell continues to impress! RTR

G'town was avg. 82 a game.

I watched the pick-6 to bring USF ahead. Walked back into the room a few minutes later and they were pouring ice on the wrong coach.  :dunno:

Tough loss, y'all.... hey, it could be worse.  You could be following the Gamecocks basketball team, this year.  :kickme:

We've been there.  Condolences sent.   :-*

 :lol:  Look, I can't run around cleaning up for you today.  If you keep insulting the guests, you'll have to deal with the consequences yourself. 

There is no web connection at this gun show (usually).

:angel:

My thoughts on last nights game:

I like how we played in the 2nd half. We were more aggressive and scored 39 points. We played our way back into the game. We made the 10-0 run with 2 minutes to go to take the lead. GT 3 point shot to win the game was a well designed play that was executed to perfection. We had it defended the guy just made a difficult shot.

We play good defense, one of the best defensive teams in the country. You will normally win if you hold your oppontent to 57 points. However, we had a lot of breakdowns last night. They took and made several wide open three point shots. I don't know how many layups they made on backdoor cuts but it was a lot.

The first half offense was terrible. We stood around and passed the ball around the perimeter for 30 seconds and did not get good looks at the basket. We did not get the ball inside with passes or dribble-drive penetration. We only scored 16 points. That is hard to overcome. GT played a zone and dared us to shoot from outside. We were something like 0-10 on three point shoots in the 1st half. To CAG credit he made adjustments at the half and we looked much better in the second half. Just like last year we will see a lot of zone defense until we have someone step up and hit outside shots. Lacy hit two big 3 pointers in the 2nd half that opened up the middle. We need him and Randolph to be more consistant from the outside.

Game stats were not good. GT shot 44% from the floor, 41% on 3PT, 80% from the FT line. We were 43% from the field, 18% from 3pt and 73% from the line. We also missed the front end of 1 and 1 twice. We were out rebounded 29-28.

It was a tough loss but I think we improved in the 2nd half. Lacy should have gained confidence in his outside shooting with his play. The home winning streak is over but we still have a good team that should learn a lot from this loss, especially the young guys. We need to finish our non-conference games strong and get ready for SEC play. I still think we are looking at 12-2 in non-conference and 12-4 in SEC. A 24-6 record will have us in good shape heading into tournament play.

Good post, pmull. Bama lost to a good team by the slimmest of margins. You can bet GT will be ranked after the next poll. I'm with you, I think Bama will only get better. We have the outside shooters, they just have to step up & get better, gain more confidence, and I know that will happen.

I will repeat what some of us have been saying for about 5 years, we have to hit the 3  point goal on a consistent basis. Hitting one 3 pointer won't work against teams like Georgetown, Kansas, Duke, Texas, Florida, Syracuse, and other solid BB programs.


 :deadhorse:

Our freshmen played like freshmen in the first half. They were tentative and scared to take a shot. They played much better in the 2nd half. We knew there would be highs and lows during the the non-conference schedule but they will be ready by the SEC schedule. I think we will find out in the next few weeks that our young guys can shoot the ball.

BTW, it was nice to see a sold out crowd for a non-conference game.

How many years have we prayed for anything close to 24-6 on the season? RTR

Our half court offense is scarey. But not to our opponents. Even when we just kick it back outside off a offensive rebound, when they get it out front to strart fresh I don't expect much. Bad away from the ball rotation,  not setting enough pick n rolls, --I don't know. But when we are in our half court offense things move slow and the D pushes us farther out, rather than us moving closer and closer for the kill shot.

Releford had more nerve last year. Remember? Early in last season, he was driving well but the ball was liable to come off his knee to the cheap seats. Then later in last season, he gained confidence and therefore ball control, and his drives opened up guys around him. Two good things can happen,--he scores on the drive or he kicks it out to a mid range guy for an open shot. But if he is CONSISTENTLY doing that, JG and TM can break to the goal to "clean up" a miss.


The half court offense is a log jam/stand off as it is now. TR slashing to the goal is a start to breaking up the zone defense.

I was very disappointed in the teams play the first half but was very disapointed in Mitchells play. Yes they did pass the ball around the perimeter but Mitchell would camp out underneath the basket with no movement at all. The second half he looked like Mitchell should look, if there were any scouts on hand last night, they got a first hand look at a very lazy player.

Kudos for the team for not quitting, the first half showing could very well have carried over to the second half. Georgetown has a bench full of good players, I don't care if they are freshmen and sophmores, thye play both ends of the court.

pmull is correct about the zone defense, Bama has got to learn how to screen a player if they are ever going to beat a zone. Every shot Bama took in the first half was highly contested because they don't know how to run a pick, hopefully CAG can correct this. This isn't the first game they have had trouble with a zone defense but it was the first time a top 10 team put one on them.

It was a tough loss but to a team that will be ranked in the top ten very soon, if they continue to play as they did against Bama last night they will be a high seed in the NCAA Tournament

Have you been hearing others share your opinion on TM? Is that the inside info on him? Just asking--I may be missing something--I have been thinking he loves to play if for nothing else, because he loves to play. But I don't have your vantage point or contacts.
CAG made some changes at half, and until I read your post, thought one was to bring TM to the ball, instead of staying low and helping JG with the boards.

So it was only the 1st 20 minutes of the G'town game or have you seen this before from him?

I wonder if maybe his ankle bothered him a little in the first half and he said to heck with the ankle in the 2nd half? He has never struck me as a lazy player, I could be wrong, though.

Mitchell is a player that loves to run the floor and make the slam dunks and there's nothing wrong with that until you run up against a team that plays great D. How many rebounds did TM have after the first 5 minutes of the game until the half. It looked like they would double team him underneath the basket on both ends of the floor. About the only time he was clean of a defender was when he got the ball way outside of the key, too far to shoot. It was amazing, when Bama was passing the ball around the perimeter, Mitchell would just swap sides of the key to whichever side the basketball was on and just stand there. If he came out to make a pick, the defender just move around him and stayed with the ballhandler. He wasn't the only one with the bad picks, they really need some work in that area. Did you notice the picks and screens that the Hoyas made, that's why the backdoor play worked so good.

When you first said he was standing around down low, my thought was this: Playing a bigger stronger "D" CAG may have told him to stay on the boards. To stay deep in the lane to help on the boards. CAG thought he'd try to have TL, LR, TR, and maybe RC to shoot the mid-range and drive to the basket. Leave JG and TM to clean the boards. But (I made a post 5 or 6 back) they couldn't penetrate the zone and we only got 16 pts. It was almost like these guys (the young ones) are scared to drive and shoot. I said earlier, I almost give up on points when we set the offense. All our points come off the run the court offense, --not so many from the half court offense.   

TM couldn't handle the 7 footer down low and by most measures it was a mismatch for him, that guy was very agile for a man that size and TM got no help from anyone else down low in the first half, Green was taking the long shots and couldn't help.

The freshmen looked like freshmen last night, I think they were intimidated when Green and Mitchell were man handled in the first half, they aren't used to seeing that. The freshmen played very timid, looked like they were afraid they would do something wrong and consiquently they did. That was their first real look at a top ten team and I think they came away with something to work on in practice. They need more games like that and then watch them, they will be much better.

Losing that game was no disgrace and if they will look at the film, they will learn a lot about themselves both mentally and physically, something that they will need to make the "Big Dance".

It's cool.... we always have baseball season.