Bama-Vandy Postgame Thread...

[Tidetwin]

thanks for linking the video. Ouch, that one hurt, especially since it looked like he was fouled.

The name of the color commentator escapes me, but didn't he play for Vandy? I thought having a VU/UA announcing team was really cool, especially since Rece gets to into basketball.

I still can't get over how Green kept drawing those fouls and then knocking down those FT's.

Hubert Davis and he was a Tar Heel.

 

[dayhiker]

Hubert Davis and he was a Tar Heel.

Is it Barry Booker that's the Vandy guy? I wonder who I'm confusing him with. Now that you mention it, the guy I'm thinking of has a very high, nasaly voice.

 

[Hoot30]

Is it Barry Booker that's the Vandy guy? I wonder who I'm confusing him with. Now that you mention it, the guy I'm thinking of has a very high, nasaly voice.

Yes. I think he played for CM. He's been relegated to the Saturday SEC Network studio. I don't think he works very many games since ESPN won the contract from JP/Lincoln Financial.

 

[derek4tide]

Great game. Coach has this team 2 yrs ahead of schedule! I love the defense and I love the passion. The vandy home win streak ends next year.

 

[efd840]

Definitely a bad call on the baseline, but I went to sleep happy last night.

Why?

Alabama basketball is relevant again. During Wimp and the first part of Gottfried's tenure, Alabama hoops could go toe to toe with anyone. It certainly wasn't Duke, but the team was respected. You couldn't have a conversation about the league title race without at least taking a look at the Tide.

Those times are back. I think they're going to finish no less than 12-4 in the league and make the tourney this year, but even if they don't Grant's finally got buy-in and to steal a corny song line, the future's so bright I gotta wear shades.

 

[rhm54]

I know there is a lot of talk about the Green baseline call but what about the phantom foul called on Releford on the other end prior to the Green call.

 

[RamJamHam]

My two cents.... the last 30 seconds of officiating were awful, but they certainly didn't cost us the game. If you know this team at all, you know our defense was not up to par last night. Defenders were getting lost, we didn't press until the second half, and a team that is usually among the best in the country defending the three left wide open shooters all night. On the other end of the court, Vandy sat back in a zone daring a team that has no legitimate three point threat to shoot over the zone and we took the bait. There is no reason we should take 15 threes in a game when a team that has legitimate shooters is putting up 19. I honestly look at half of those possessions as turnovers because of the low percentage of hitting those shots. Shot selection at crucial times and poor defense cost us this game. If we change those things, we don't have a reason to yell at the refs because we're up by 10 at the end.

Also, Jamychal was getting destroyed inside early and it took us too long to adjust. His man was posting up about 6 inches from the rim and it wasn't until we put Hines on him that we showed any resistance inside.

This. Those calls did not help at all, but think about the fact that we had Green hit his first three of the year at a crucial time. Some of that stuff evens out.

We lost the game from about 11 minutes to go in the first half until about 2 minutes to go in the first half. Up to that point, we had the game at a 60ish pace, and you see where it ended up. If anything, I too am happy to see that we could keep up with Vandy when they scored right on their average in SEC play.

 

[RamJamHam]

I hate this line of reasoning. You can say all that all you want, but no matter what came before it, no matter how we played or how we shot or how we defended, with a minute left in the game we were up one point. We had put ourselves in a position to win. Then Mitchell gets mugged and no call. Then Releford fouls out on a phantom call that allows them to go up two. Then, with the ball and a chance to tie under the basket, we get the phantom out of bounds call. Officiating cost us that game. It is as simple as that. It rarely is true, and it's usually an excuse, but not tonight.

All that is true, but your line of reasoning fails to take into account that if we had not done all of those things earlier and gotten behind by double digits a couple times, or if we had made more plays instead of turnovers at times in the second half, those calls wouldn't have mattered.

To me. it's kind of like moaning about a bad call on strike three when you watched two good pitches go by on strikes one and two. Yes, it was a bad call, but if you'd have hit one of the first two you wouldn't have given the umpire the opportunity to call you out. If we'd have made the plays that were there to be made, we'd have taken the whistles away from the officials at the end.

 

[day-day]

I hit record on the game at the half so my wife and I could watch last nights Modern Family episode. We've just about caught up with live play when the DVR suddenly cut off with about 75 seconds to go. NOOOOOOOO. The recording had ended and we were suddenly put in that post DVR time warp and into James Spann's weather report. That was a long 10 minutes until we could get to the sports segment. They did show the out of bounds play, but were zoomed way out.

....

I've learned the hard way; always add extra time when recording sporting events.

Exactly, I think we outscored them 42 -18 in the paint! I think CAG needs a bonus. To me we are ahead of schedule with the program.

Agree!

 

[Double R]

What a solid performance last night for the Tide. Refs blow calls frequently in college basketball. It's a fast-paced game, and calls are missed or made at the wrong times. It's terrible when it goes against your team (twice!), but it's the nature of the game. I think the NCAA should consider a rule allowing replay to be consulted on any call within the last 1 or 2 minutes of a game. Regardless, it was a solid performance for this team. To play as well as they did last night in Memorial gym was a very strong accomplishment, and adds to strength of this team. Going to be a tough two-day turn-around to play Mississippi Saturday. This has been such a fun season to follow.

 

[RTR91]

After sleeping on it and thinking about it:

1)Why the heck is a ref working 5 games in 7 days?

2)Why didn't Bama trap more towards the end? That's when the D is at its best IMO.

3)The Tide needs a consistent 3 point shooter to break the zone.

4)Vandy drained a lot of 3s otherwise Bama blows them out. Some of those shots were not defendable.

 

[CrimsonProf]

I hate this line of reasoning. You can say all that all you want, but no matter what came before it, no matter how we played or how we shot or how we defended, with a minute left in the game we were up one point. We had put ourselves in a position to win. Then Mitchell gets mugged and no call. Then Releford fouls out on a phantom call that allows them to go up two. Then, with the ball and a chance to tie under the basket, we get the phantom out of bounds call. Officiating cost us that game. It is as simple as that. It rarely is true, and it's usually an excuse, but not tonight.

Yes! You beat me to it, but I have to reiterate this point. We can play the woulda coulda shoulda game all day, and in football, I tend to agree, since most penalties don't mean automatic points or turnovers. But when you have a one possession game in basketball, and a foul called or missed turns into points or a change of possession, then I, as a fan, will absolutely blame the officials for their ineptitude, at best, or their corruption, at worst. Whatever we should have done differently in the first half, whatever we should do differently in practice, if the ref gets the call right on the baseline and then makes the appropriate foul call, we're up with six seconds on the clock. End of story. That much is on the official, who is charged with properly enforcing the rules to avoid this sort of thing.

All that said, I am very excited about the program's future, and I really hope we have a fire in our belly tomorrow afternoon at Coleman. I hate Ole Miss.

 

[Rama Jama]

The ref's absolutely screwed us. No he didn't step out and he got fouled before he supposedly stepped out. Releford never even touched the guy on the replay and they call that crap then ignore the hard foul at the other end with Green. Also the block earlier when Mitchell took a shot 3 ft from the goal was a clear foul. Had Mitchell been wearing a gold jersey the ref's call it based on the foul they called on Releford. All I want is for the refs to call it both ways. They clearly didn't last night at key times in the game.

I was pleased with the effort, we nearly won in spite of the Ref's at one of the toughest gyms in the country. Vandy just had one of those night from 3 point land that is hard to overcome. That happens a time or two every year. Coach Grant went off at the end of the game. I was frankly glad to see his fire and competitive spirit. I have never seen him so upset. It' going to be a pleasure to watch his team's when his players get here next year.

This team is special if only because they certainly aren't usually the most talented team on the court and still find a way to win. We are still going to either win the SEC or tie for 1st. Great Job coach.

 

[OakMtn4Bama]

While the calls at the end of the game didn't favor Bama at all, Vandy shot 9-19 (47%) from behind the arc. Bama was 2-15. The officials didn't cause that. The calls that went against us at the end kept us from winning in spite of the combination of great Vandy shooting and poor Bama D. If we had held them to even 10 points above our season average, we would have won easily, and bad calls wouldn't have mattered. You give up 81 points on the road in the SEC, you're not gonna win many, and it wasn't the refs that caused that. When games are decided by calls at the end, the home team usually has the advantage. It shouldn't have been that close.

THIS ^^^^^^^^^^

 

[dayhiker]

Great game. Coach has this team 2 yrs ahead of schedule! I love the defense and I love the passion. The vandy home win streak ends next year.

It'll be two years. East div guys we play once a year alternating home and home.

 

[bamahippie]

The purpose of these post-game threads is to allow comments on the game without folks having to go to the end of a multi-page game thread. I hope the SEC apologizes for this one. They should...

Totally agree. I felt just as proud of this team as I did after the UT win. There's just some things you can't overcome when it keeps happening as much as it was (bad calls, no calls)... This team will go places int he near future.

 

[ElephanTideis]

I just hope the refs didn't cost us a conference championship last night.

 

[RKel32]

Yes! You beat me to it, but I have to reiterate this point. We can play the woulda coulda shoulda game all day, and in football, I tend to agree, since most penalties don't mean automatic points or turnovers. But when you have a one possession game in basketball, and a foul called or missed turns into points or a change of possession, then I, as a fan, will absolutely blame the officials for their ineptitude, at best, or their corruption, at worst. Whatever we should have done differently in the first half, whatever we should do differently in practice, if the ref gets the call right on the baseline and then makes the appropriate foul call, we're up with six seconds on the clock. End of story. That much is on the official, who is charged with properly enforcing the rules to avoid this sort of thing.

All that said, I am very excited about the program's future, and I really hope we have a fire in our belly tomorrow afternoon at Coleman. I hate Ole Miss.

I'm not saying the calls weren't crucial and didn't possibly cost us the game. What I am saying is that if we do the things we can actually control, we take the fate of the game out of the ref's hands. It all comes down to whether you have a victim mentality or not.

Horrible calls during the last 30 seconds though.

 

[RamJamHam]

No, those are legitimate parts of the game that we overcame. You have to overcome your own mistakes and the play of the other team. That's the game. You should not have to overcome bad officiating. And don't tell me that bad calls are just part of the game. Those calls went above and beyond.

You control the things you can control and you deal with the things you can't. If you leave the game in the balance, as Alabama did last night, then you are susceptible to what happened. At least I hope that is what CAG is telling his team. If you are depending on the officials to get it right 100% of the time you are screwed and there's nothing you can do about it.

I thought the call on Releford was horrible, and I think the official flat-out blew the call on Green. But if we're up 20 points (or even 10) at that point we're not even having this discussion. Simply put, we put ourselves in a position last night where everything had to go right at the end and, for whatever reason, legitimate or illegitimate, they didn't all go right and we lost.

It's a learing experience for a quickly improving Alabama basketball team. At least the discussion is something other than why we got beat by 20 again on the road and were not really ever in it.

 

[CrimsonProf]

I'm not saying the calls weren't crucial and didn't possibly cost us the game. What I am saying is that if we do the things we can actually control, we take the fate of the game out of the ref's hands. It all comes down to whether you have a victim mentality or not.

Horrible calls during the last 30 seconds though.

With all due respect, sir, I do not have a victim mentality. I do have a mind for fairness, however, and when you're making a good faith effort, you should lose fairly, not due to the blatant, egregious incompetence of the officiating crew.