THE ARKANSAS GAME - SOME THINGS TO KNOW

CAN ALABAMA STOP THE SKID?
Will 'Bama recapture the magic on Saturday?
Has Grant shaken up the rotation?

    Alabama returns to Coleman Coliseum for just the third time in January. Will the home-court advantage be enough to raise 'Bama' SEC record to 3-4?  It better be enough because in all honesty a 5th loss will just about kill any chance Alabama has to make the NCAA Field of 64 with a miracle. Many are already suggesting the Crimson Tide must win 8 of their 11 remaining SEC games, plus a win or two in New Orleans. My personal opinion is that if Tide can get 20 or 21 wins their RPI plus their Strength of Schedule will be enough to land them a decent seed in the field. A decent seed is not 8 or 9. Bama needs a strong finish to get down to a 5 or 6 seed with a strong run down the stretch. Bama is a team that will be hard to put out of the tournament because of their reaching the finals in the NIT last season and because they have received so much pre-season hype. Those things matter. In addition, that NIT final last season makes the Selection Committee look pretty stupid by taking Georgia over the Tide. 

     That hard run at the end of last season included a memorable trip from the dead against Georgia in the last couple of minutes. At the end of the year the Tide had won 25 games and were fast becoming a team to fear this season. It seemed like it would be true. A red hot 13-3 start with two close losses in the mix made it appear the Tide would get even stronger as the four freshmen earned their spurs. And then the bottom dropped out. Then a couple of unexpected losses to Dayton and and Kansas State took the shine off a great beginning. Dayton and Kansas State will  be in the NCAA so it wasn't that either loss was stunning since they were road games. In hindsight the Tide's offensive let downs in both those games were harbingers of things to come. In the second half of the KSU game the Tide just shut down on defense and then the offense fell apart. It hasn't been the same since. Wins over Oklahoma State in Birmingham and ACC Georgia Tech looked good. The three point baskets fell against the Cowboys and Georgia Tech probably left that game thinking the ACC was an easier league than the SEC. Significantly, the Tide showed they could win with JayMychal Green on the bench. Things were falling in to place, and then they fell apart. What happened?  Coach Grant feels like some individuals or the team is playing as if they were "entitled". Now, I'm not sure exactly what that means. I suppose it means because you are Alabama and you wear Crimson/White you walk on the floor and win. Other teams are supposed to just roll over in the presence of your full court pressure. Not only did Grant believe that he made a public statement he believed that was the problem, but admitted he needed to re-evaluate what he and his staff were doing. I doubt they did anything to contribute to such an attitude. 

    I wanted to take a look back at the last four SEC losses and offer some opinions. First, Mississippi State might win the SEC. Arnette Moultrie is the best player in the SEC right now. If he played at Kentucky his name would be espn-god. Bama almost won that game. Perhaps they should have won except that Dee Bost hit three big baskets in a row. He wasn't open and he wasn't near the three point line. That is just great play. Then came Vanderbilt. The Tide had already lost once at home this season to Georgetown. Vanderbilt played the best game they played all year long. By the time that Bama understood they were going to lose they had already lost. The 10 point margin was deceptive. 'Bama seemed to get shell-shocked after those two losses. 'Bama picked themselves off the mat and pushed Kentucky to the limit in a 67-61 game that was lost on free throws missed by Bama and made by Kentucky. A lot of free throws made to Kentucky. It wasn't surprising that Bama lost in Rupp and at the Hump in retrospect. The loss to Vanderbilt really wasn't that surprising because the Commodores had been picked as a top 10 team by many. And then...

       Came South Carolina. Carolina hadn't won a game. They are a terrible team with only two decent players. Bama needed to make sure that neither beat them. They couldn't do it. The entire world knew that Ellington was going to take a buzzer shot. He got past Releford and Green just couldn't elevate due to his bad ankle. South Carolina was 5-31 from behind the arch. Bama chose not to double team the Carolina guard and make him dish it off to a cold shooting Gamecock team. That's a coaching decision. Ellington who also is a great wideout in football used his power to push pass Trevor and avoid JayMychal. Bama looked lost. The looked confused the entire game. The defense was horrible. Most of those 31 missed threes were wide open attempts. Bama could have been beat by 20 if a few of those shot fell. And now, here comes the electrifying Arksansas Razorbacks in a nationally televised game. 
  

      Mike Anderson is a heck of a coach. He built on the foundation of Stormin' Norman in Missouri and was the right hand man of Nolan Richardson for 16 years. The man rescued the UAB program. Now he returns home to Fayetteville and has won 15 of his 20 games this season. Like Alabama (and a lot of SEC teams) the road has been rough on the Razorbacks. Arkansas, like Alabama, has a lot of gifted freshmen. Alabama has been installed as a 9.5 point favorite. That says more about road games in the SEC than present play by the teams. 


The Starting Lineups (projected) for Alabama
                                        
                                        Trevor Releford: 
                                        Nick Jacobs
                                        JayMychal Green
                                        Trevor Lacey
                                        Toney Mitchell ***
                                   First off the bench: Levi Randolph


Look for:  Expanded playing time for Steele, and a start would not be surprising. 
*** There is a lot of talk about Mitchell not starting. 

Mike Anderson is a much respected Coach

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