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.
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.
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.
Probably similar to why Julio Jones and many others decided they wanted to come to Alabama after a horrible 2007 season.
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.
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?
This loss had nothing to do with the refs. We got punk'd by a smaller team with inferior athletes on our home court..
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.
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?