Richmond vs. Alabama

TitleWave said:

[HR][/HR]Couple of things (minutiae in the bigger scheme of 'Bama basketball):

'Bama had better athletes, Richmond had better basketball players (big difference).

Now that the NCAA owns the NIT, can a D1 school even "send regrets" to that invite - and decline to play in the tournament?

I hate the NIT, it's for losers and has been since the Big Dance starting getting bigger (32 teams, then 64).

Corollary to that hate - and the meaninglessness attached to the NIT - why can't the NCAA tournament expand to 96 teams, which would include or annex the 32 the NIT gets?

I put any knocks against Avery's post-season coaching in context with what I saw last Saturday against UK - the way the Tide played, throughout the entire game, length of the court, to the final buzzer - convinced me that he can get eventually get 'Bama basketball where it needs to be.

The postmortem for this season is, alas, same as for the last 10-15: It's gotta get better next year. Have to believe that it will - with the influx of talent sending some packing and others "deservedly" (from an SEC and D1 vantage) back to the bench.

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No!

Bama Shoals said:

So far Avery Johnson's calling card is for his team to get you a little excited and then flop. It's happened multiple times now over two years against teams it shouldn't happen against. Embarrassing loss tonight.

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This tends to happen when you have a fairly young team that doesn't have more than two guys that would start at most other SEC schools (Braxton and Dazon).

Avery has discussed this earlier in the season. The guys rarely put together two solid halves. Usually, they played a solid half and a bad half.

Better players and more experience will help that.

CajunCrimson said:

I don't doubt they are coming....just not sure what they saw. I miss the days where we could: 1) shoot, 2) drive to the goal, and 3) score inside.

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Probably similar to why Julio Jones and many others decided they wanted to come to Alabama after a horrible 2007 season.

Rama Jama said:

This is not sour grapes, but the officials call a held ball when Braxton get fouled on a drive cost us 2 points. Bola is tackled under the goal on a rebound when we likely would have scored 2, instead free throws on the other end 3 point swing. Call don't a for a phantom foul on Donta against Cline 2 points. 7 points we could have some scored, but didn't. The margin was 7 points with them shooting free throws at the end.

The state of officiating in basketball has never been worse. We have the worst dynamic with the officials for some reason I've ever seen. We just can't catch a break. When was the last time we shot more free throws than our opponent.

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Did notice the officials seemed to let both teams play more than they have this year. Was that part of rules being tested for the NIT?

CrimsonForce said:

This loss had nothing to do with the refs. We got punk'd by a smaller team with inferior athletes on our home court..

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Going into the game, Richmond had a RPI of 80 while Alabam's was 78. So the teams were pretty even. Two of their five starters are Seniors (Cline and Jones), but they do have two Freshmen starting.

Between Cline and Jones' experience and us not seeing their style of play often, Bama was in trouble.

BamaMike05 said:

Tired and uninspired is spot on. I'm really beginning to think that maybe the NIT should just become a mid-major tournament.

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Avery commented after the Kentucky game players were in the locker room crying. Have to wonder if they were emotionally drained and tired. My question with the NIT is why does it have to start less than a full 48 hours after the teams are announced?


There were 8 games last night (Syracuse/UNC-Greensboro was postponed). Five road teams and six lower seeds won. Anyone else surprised by that?

Finish is so often used by the football program, but I am hoping Coach Johnson can get us back to where we can finish strong again. Last two- 0-2, last four- 2-2, last eight- 3-5. To make the NCAA tourney we need to be consistent from beginning to end. I think we are headed in that direction, but the NIT performances of the last two years certainly don't provide a lot of confidence. Oh well, it's time for the off-season and the rebuilding of optimism for next year.

It's a style of play we rarely see and a pretty good team with almost equal talent. I'm not shocked.


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CrimsonProf said:

It's a style of play we rarely see and a pretty good team with almost equal talent. I'm not shocked.


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At this point I don't think anybody is shocked when Alabama basketball loses a game. Disappointed is a better word choice..

teamplayer said:

Finish is so often used by the football program, but I am hoping Coach Johnson can get us back to where we can finish strong again. Last two- 0-2, last four- 2-2, last eight- 3-5. To make the NCAA tourney we need to be consistent from beginning to end. I think we are headed in that direction, but the NIT performances of the last two years certainly don't provide a lot of confidence. Oh well, it's time for the off-season and the rebuilding of optimism for next year.

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The problem this year, IMO, is we have only 2 players at this point capable of being a game changer in Ingram & Key. If one or both are flat and tired like this game then we're gonna struggle. And we did. Another issue I see is trying to force interior passes and creating turnovers. I love AJ but he forced way too many bad passes against a small and quick defense. And he wasn't alone. Getting the ball to the interior appeared to be a must but we needed multiple players who could drive the basket as opposed to multiple passes pushing the limits of the shot clock especially late in the game.

I'm optimistic about improvement next year but even more about the year after. CAJ is a good coach. He'll have this program in the big dance soon. If not next year then definitely the year after. Just gotta get some quality depth and he's doing that. I'm good.


Roll Tide!

Cruiser said:

Hate to say it; but I saw very little good in that effort; playing or coaching.
Looking forward to better.

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Trying to stay positive here, easy to complain about a loss.

Stonewall D said:

I must disagree. I was completely shocked. Alabama is the class of the SEC and should have destroyed Richmond. Your team is huge and very talented. They would have destroyed most of the teams in the A-10.

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Have you ever watched us play this season? We lost at home to the only A-10 team that we played this season vs. Dayton. Calling us the class of the SEC this season means either you are trolling us really hard or you don't watch any basketball outside of the A-10.


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ptw1961 said:

Deep sigh. Earl will ban me if I say anything more on your comments.

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I'm glad that I'm not the only one that does that when they post (What's Earle going to say? lol) I wish he would monitor some of Trump's tweets before he sends them out.....But we were probably out of gas after last week and I do think CAJ has us headed in the right direction.

CrimsonForce said:

At this point I don't think anybody is shocked when Alabama basketball loses a game. Disappointed is a better word choice..

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Frankly, I have been beaten down to the point where I usually expect us to lose against any decent team. That way I don't have to get over the disappointment. It's a defense mechanism, I know, and I hope we are soon good enough where I can be more optimistic. This way makes me feel like Eeyore, and I am sick of it. Coach, get us back to being Sweet 16 regulars again, please.

BAMAVILLE said:

I was honestly. Especially the Clemson/Oakland game. I know Oakland has had a pretty decent program for the last 10 years or so but i still thought Clemson would beat them.

But back on topic, I'm already looking forward to next season of Bama basketball lol

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Oakland won that game??!! I had a bad feeling about Us at halftime during our game and was crazy sleepy from a long day and just went to sleep at halftime. Woke up this morning to see that Richmond had indeed beat us *sigh*.... But last time I checked the Oak/Clem score...Clemson had a 20 point lead!! That must have been a MAJOR collapse...

Anyway back to us.....the way I felt at halftime and by reading your guys comments today....last night reminded me of the 2008 Football team. We lost that SECCG to Fla after having a 4th qtr lead and then just didn't show up at the Sugar Bowl against Utah.

Same thing with the Basketball team.....they were emotionally crushed by losing that Kentucky game. They didn't care about playing Richmond. Showed no desire at all from what I could see. We might as well have declined the invitation.