Vanderbilt is 3-0 in the SEC... (see late breaking video below)*
Bama fights for second place behind Kentucky tonight
In a sense the game tonight is the Oklahoma State vs. SEC argument. One team thinks they can outscore everyone and the other thinks that Defense is the key. Vanderbilt is going to come into Coleman Coliseum with their a shooters mentality. Alabama is going to push, shove, bump, nudge elbows on shots, and generally make some of Nolan Richardson's old teams look like junior high games. However, Vandy has to play a modicum of defense, and Alabama has to score more than usual. I think is easier to produce points than it is to suddenly become a defensive stopper. Let's acknowledge something about Alabama. No one really stops the Tide from scoring but the Tide. Cold spells from the outside have plagued the team all year, although things are getting better. I'm never overly concerned about poor shooting on the road from the outside. Although it never seems to bother Vanderbilt very often. You really worry when you don't make them at home.
If I were coach for a night, and Coach Grant said, "0kay, you talk to the shooters and get them ready." I'd tell them that there has never been a shot that hasn't been made (within reason) by you guys. The rim is the same height as at Butler, Bob Jones, Russellville, and at every high school you guys are from. The defensive players are bigger, but you've got men the size of mountains to set picks for you and rebound if you should miss. You can't be a great shooter unless you've got an itchy trigger finger. If the game come down to one three point basket and I ask who wants to take the shot I want to see five hands raised immediately and guys on the bench "let me coach". That is how shooters make baskets.
When I transferred to the high school I graduated from back in the day our basketball coach ran the Auburn shuffle. I doubt many of you remember the Auburn shuffle. It was a neat way to run circles around your brain and shorten games. Auburn won a bunch of games using it unless they played good teams. After about four rotations the better teams started shutting down passing lanes, and anticipating the spots were passes were supposed to go. I hated it.I had transferred from a large high school and was given the green light to let it fly. In practice we ran the offense to perfection (perfection being loosely interpreted at the small school level.) In games we ran the rotation a few times and then everyone agreed to set picks for me and another player to shoot. Needless to say our our coach went ballistic. The only problem was we won games. We beat a few large division schools and didn't have a starter over six one. One night a recruiter from Georgia Tech came over to watch us play. Our coach knew he was there to watch me. All he did was gripe to the recruiter after the game about me not being a team player. I also have to admit the coach and I never spoke to one another. Our interaction was him screaming at me and our team, and our generally being amused at him in an era that such behavior wasn't allowed. That made me a city boy and a subversive. He called me that. I had to go ask his wife who was another one of our teachers exactly what that meant. It dawned on me there was some truth in what he said. All I wanted to do was win games and get the hell out of the little county I lived in before I married Farmer Brown's daughter out of boredom. The Tech coach and I had talked many times. Those conversations were generally him talking and me saying yes and no sir. Except when it came to my "ideas" on shooting the rock. My view was the offensive player knew where he was going, the defensive player either had to guess or just react. Those were days before video and scouting was unheard of by coaches. My mother used to drag me to games of upcoming teams and make me make notes of how they defended. Smart woman. Dumb son who really wanted to be with Farmer Browns daughter making out in the hay loft. Luckily, most mothers prevail. When I started talking with the coach about "I know he'll always over play to my right because I am right handed, but because I am left footed it is more natural to go to the left. The coach said he thought I was ambidexterous because I shot so many left handed shots. Only the ones from inside the foul line I told him. Outside because I could square off I could shoot right handed. He asked me how Iearned all of this (insinuating that the Auburn shuffle was not a learned school for individual basketball. I told him that some was natural, but my mother taught me some based on kinetics. My high school coached looked at me like I had just landed on the moon. This was pretty much how I felt when I learned I was leaving Oxford High School. This college oach and I talked a lot. We talked on the telephone almost every night when the party line was open. We talked basketball theory. He asked me how I knew exactly where to position myself on the offensive end. I told him it was importat to to allow myself from room to manuver and cut down on double teams which were becoming a problem. So I never stood within 15 feet of a teammate on offense. One night when a recruiter from Athens State came to watch and the Tech coach saw him he said, " son I want you to come to Tech. But I'll be honest with you. Your future is not in playing but in coaching." That stung. I got some offers from junior colleges and smaller schools. I knew where I was going and why. I spent most of my summers in Jackson,Mississippi where my family was from when I was a kid. We were so poor our street was the first street over from the black section. Back then you didn't have public housing. Just homes so all my black buddies lived in houses. Everyday I played basketball from sunup to whenever my mother came to get me. One thing I learned was I could shot the ball better than most everyone, I could jump really high for a white guy, but I wasn't quick enough To cover a sneeze. Show me a zone and I'd shoot myself right back on the bench. I could dunk in the eighth grade but wasn't really strong enough to be an inside player. I was classically skinny. So bottom line was I was going college to learn to be a coach. I hurt my knee in the days when surgery consisted of drinking whiskey for the pain and seeing how well a chainsaw could repair a knee. I knew even before classes I couldn't play, and after I was hurt it was even more obvious. But I got to hang with the coaches. The only game I ever played in was a practice game against Duke. Just freshman. Duke wasn't even in the SEC. I made four out of five outside baskets against a (get this on a 2-1-2) zone which we all know as about as a effective against a outside shooting as drinking is to cure a hangover. After the fourth one I made, they switched back to the zone and my "career" was over. Because I didn't actually get a scholorship until the second year per our agreement I was a one and done player. LOL. I got to watch Roger Kaiser play and that made it worth it. The assistant coach would sometimes ask me to come up to the film room and talk x's and o's. I once suggested that Roger could get more points if we didn't put our best two shooters on his side because no one payed any attention to us when we rotated back against the zone. They could essetially use one player to guard to on the scorers side. Or as my late mom would say - son that's bad spacing and that gets you beat. The head coach looked at me like I was some yahoo off the coal truck (true) but they tried it and I can't remember how many points Kaiser scored but it was enough be moved up the dump truck category instead of the coal truck entry level.
Basketball hasn't changed on bit since the 60''s except the players are bigger and stronger. They all jump higher except for a few in the early days. Bob Harper is still the greatest rebound who ever played in the SEC and most people don't know who he is now. The new kids don't shoot the ball for as good as percentage because they are trying shots we could not have imagined back in the day. Until Notan Richardson, Wimp Sanderson, and now Anthony Grant came along the defense was as better back then. Baskball was a contact sport in the sixties,and I'd elevate it to a collision sport now. The three point line killed basketball the way it was once played. Things come and go in all sports. In hoops defense still wins games. players who can shoot can still play and real baseketball players instead of great athletes will win close games. Teams that make the free throws win, teams that don't turn it over still win. All the little things still win basketball games. Stupidity will get you beat.
So now Vandy comes into Coleman Coliseum to play Alabama. Vandy is probably known as the one team in the SEC who has players. Bama is the team who has always had great athletes. A couple of things have changed. Vandy now has their share of athletes. And Bama has a lot more players. You watch Releford and Jenkins. They would have fit in with the old Boston Celtics. So would Lacey, Randolph, and Jacobs. They each have great athletism but they play under control. Launch control is about the only control that Mitchell answers too. plays good fundamentals most of the time. Something I suspect he wouldn't have done had coach Grant not arrived. Green is a great athlete who can good fundamentals when he isn' t trying to hard. . Vandy is very much like the Tide. Both teams have players and athletes. One team has players who can run an offense more effectively. One team has athletes who are more dangerous on defense, but each has enough of both to be deadly and go a long way in the SEC. That's the reason that Calipari will never win an NCAA tournament at Kentucky. He has great athletes. He doesn't have enough players and somewhere down the line it catches up with them. A player knows his limitations. Athletes are like the olden greek gods. They think they can do anything and frequently they can. It is is when they don't or can't they'll become a liability to their team. You have probably never seen a prediction based on a combination of players and athletes. Bama has the slight edge at home. The players will be steady, the athletes will be godlike. I still like Bama by four. Scream for the gods but watch the players closely.
*Late Breaking Video of Coach Grant from the Bham News
Alabama's leading source for News....
http://video-embed.al.com/services/player/bcpid61932948600
Coach Grants pre-game interview and he's not happy: Must up the Tempo and coach questions team dedication to practice....
El
Bama fights for second place behind Kentucky tonight
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| The right combination for Grant. |
In a sense the game tonight is the Oklahoma State vs. SEC argument. One team thinks they can outscore everyone and the other thinks that Defense is the key. Vanderbilt is going to come into Coleman Coliseum with their a shooters mentality. Alabama is going to push, shove, bump, nudge elbows on shots, and generally make some of Nolan Richardson's old teams look like junior high games. However, Vandy has to play a modicum of defense, and Alabama has to score more than usual. I think is easier to produce points than it is to suddenly become a defensive stopper. Let's acknowledge something about Alabama. No one really stops the Tide from scoring but the Tide. Cold spells from the outside have plagued the team all year, although things are getting better. I'm never overly concerned about poor shooting on the road from the outside. Although it never seems to bother Vanderbilt very often. You really worry when you don't make them at home.
If I were coach for a night, and Coach Grant said, "0kay, you talk to the shooters and get them ready." I'd tell them that there has never been a shot that hasn't been made (within reason) by you guys. The rim is the same height as at Butler, Bob Jones, Russellville, and at every high school you guys are from. The defensive players are bigger, but you've got men the size of mountains to set picks for you and rebound if you should miss. You can't be a great shooter unless you've got an itchy trigger finger. If the game come down to one three point basket and I ask who wants to take the shot I want to see five hands raised immediately and guys on the bench "let me coach". That is how shooters make baskets.
When I transferred to the high school I graduated from back in the day our basketball coach ran the Auburn shuffle. I doubt many of you remember the Auburn shuffle. It was a neat way to run circles around your brain and shorten games. Auburn won a bunch of games using it unless they played good teams. After about four rotations the better teams started shutting down passing lanes, and anticipating the spots were passes were supposed to go. I hated it.I had transferred from a large high school and was given the green light to let it fly. In practice we ran the offense to perfection (perfection being loosely interpreted at the small school level.) In games we ran the rotation a few times and then everyone agreed to set picks for me and another player to shoot. Needless to say our our coach went ballistic. The only problem was we won games. We beat a few large division schools and didn't have a starter over six one. One night a recruiter from Georgia Tech came over to watch us play. Our coach knew he was there to watch me. All he did was gripe to the recruiter after the game about me not being a team player. I also have to admit the coach and I never spoke to one another. Our interaction was him screaming at me and our team, and our generally being amused at him in an era that such behavior wasn't allowed. That made me a city boy and a subversive. He called me that. I had to go ask his wife who was another one of our teachers exactly what that meant. It dawned on me there was some truth in what he said. All I wanted to do was win games and get the hell out of the little county I lived in before I married Farmer Brown's daughter out of boredom. The Tech coach and I had talked many times. Those conversations were generally him talking and me saying yes and no sir. Except when it came to my "ideas" on shooting the rock. My view was the offensive player knew where he was going, the defensive player either had to guess or just react. Those were days before video and scouting was unheard of by coaches. My mother used to drag me to games of upcoming teams and make me make notes of how they defended. Smart woman. Dumb son who really wanted to be with Farmer Browns daughter making out in the hay loft. Luckily, most mothers prevail. When I started talking with the coach about "I know he'll always over play to my right because I am right handed, but because I am left footed it is more natural to go to the left. The coach said he thought I was ambidexterous because I shot so many left handed shots. Only the ones from inside the foul line I told him. Outside because I could square off I could shoot right handed. He asked me how Iearned all of this (insinuating that the Auburn shuffle was not a learned school for individual basketball. I told him that some was natural, but my mother taught me some based on kinetics. My high school coached looked at me like I had just landed on the moon. This was pretty much how I felt when I learned I was leaving Oxford High School. This college oach and I talked a lot. We talked on the telephone almost every night when the party line was open. We talked basketball theory. He asked me how I knew exactly where to position myself on the offensive end. I told him it was importat to to allow myself from room to manuver and cut down on double teams which were becoming a problem. So I never stood within 15 feet of a teammate on offense. One night when a recruiter from Athens State came to watch and the Tech coach saw him he said, " son I want you to come to Tech. But I'll be honest with you. Your future is not in playing but in coaching." That stung. I got some offers from junior colleges and smaller schools. I knew where I was going and why. I spent most of my summers in Jackson,Mississippi where my family was from when I was a kid. We were so poor our street was the first street over from the black section. Back then you didn't have public housing. Just homes so all my black buddies lived in houses. Everyday I played basketball from sunup to whenever my mother came to get me. One thing I learned was I could shot the ball better than most everyone, I could jump really high for a white guy, but I wasn't quick enough To cover a sneeze. Show me a zone and I'd shoot myself right back on the bench. I could dunk in the eighth grade but wasn't really strong enough to be an inside player. I was classically skinny. So bottom line was I was going college to learn to be a coach. I hurt my knee in the days when surgery consisted of drinking whiskey for the pain and seeing how well a chainsaw could repair a knee. I knew even before classes I couldn't play, and after I was hurt it was even more obvious. But I got to hang with the coaches. The only game I ever played in was a practice game against Duke. Just freshman. Duke wasn't even in the SEC. I made four out of five outside baskets against a (get this on a 2-1-2) zone which we all know as about as a effective against a outside shooting as drinking is to cure a hangover. After the fourth one I made, they switched back to the zone and my "career" was over. Because I didn't actually get a scholorship until the second year per our agreement I was a one and done player. LOL. I got to watch Roger Kaiser play and that made it worth it. The assistant coach would sometimes ask me to come up to the film room and talk x's and o's. I once suggested that Roger could get more points if we didn't put our best two shooters on his side because no one payed any attention to us when we rotated back against the zone. They could essetially use one player to guard to on the scorers side. Or as my late mom would say - son that's bad spacing and that gets you beat. The head coach looked at me like I was some yahoo off the coal truck (true) but they tried it and I can't remember how many points Kaiser scored but it was enough be moved up the dump truck category instead of the coal truck entry level.
Basketball hasn't changed on bit since the 60''s except the players are bigger and stronger. They all jump higher except for a few in the early days. Bob Harper is still the greatest rebound who ever played in the SEC and most people don't know who he is now. The new kids don't shoot the ball for as good as percentage because they are trying shots we could not have imagined back in the day. Until Notan Richardson, Wimp Sanderson, and now Anthony Grant came along the defense was as better back then. Baskball was a contact sport in the sixties,and I'd elevate it to a collision sport now. The three point line killed basketball the way it was once played. Things come and go in all sports. In hoops defense still wins games. players who can shoot can still play and real baseketball players instead of great athletes will win close games. Teams that make the free throws win, teams that don't turn it over still win. All the little things still win basketball games. Stupidity will get you beat.
So now Vandy comes into Coleman Coliseum to play Alabama. Vandy is probably known as the one team in the SEC who has players. Bama is the team who has always had great athletes. A couple of things have changed. Vandy now has their share of athletes. And Bama has a lot more players. You watch Releford and Jenkins. They would have fit in with the old Boston Celtics. So would Lacey, Randolph, and Jacobs. They each have great athletism but they play under control. Launch control is about the only control that Mitchell answers too. plays good fundamentals most of the time. Something I suspect he wouldn't have done had coach Grant not arrived. Green is a great athlete who can good fundamentals when he isn' t trying to hard. . Vandy is very much like the Tide. Both teams have players and athletes. One team has players who can run an offense more effectively. One team has athletes who are more dangerous on defense, but each has enough of both to be deadly and go a long way in the SEC. That's the reason that Calipari will never win an NCAA tournament at Kentucky. He has great athletes. He doesn't have enough players and somewhere down the line it catches up with them. A player knows his limitations. Athletes are like the olden greek gods. They think they can do anything and frequently they can. It is is when they don't or can't they'll become a liability to their team. You have probably never seen a prediction based on a combination of players and athletes. Bama has the slight edge at home. The players will be steady, the athletes will be godlike. I still like Bama by four. Scream for the gods but watch the players closely.
*Late Breaking Video of Coach Grant from the Bham News
Alabama's leading source for News....
http://video-embed.al.com/services/player/bcpid61932948600
Coach Grants pre-game interview and he's not happy: Must up the Tempo and coach questions team dedication to practice....
 |
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