Florida talent is too much in the end...
Will Mitchell and Grant be allowed back?
Alabama's heart and tenacious defense carried the team to a 26-26 first half tie. In the second half it was all Florida. I'm sure all Alabama fans were hoping for a miracle. I know I sure was. Hope springs eternal and that second half seemed like an eternity. After shooting 60% in the first half the Tide went stone cold in the second. Florida opened up with red hot second stanza shooting, and the Tide didn't have the firepower to match them.
I have no doubt that had Mitchell and Green played the outcome would have been different. There is no reassurance either will return. This is a terribly sad situation to the fans who love their team, and to those players and coaches who have worked hard to have a good season. At this moment Alabama is the worst team in the SEC. I can't see them winning many, if any, remaining games in the rough and ready SEC.
I wonder what Mitchell and Green are thinking at this very moment. I couldn't stand to watch my teammates suffer because of my actions. The pair should offer to walk on broken glass and beg Grant to forgive them so all of this can end. The hard part about punishing those suspended players is that everyone else gets punished as well. The kids gave it their all tonight, but the the talent level was too much to make up. Great coaching can carry you a long way, and in the first half it did. Bama had a chance. 10 turnovers in the first half made it impossible for the Tide to sustain any offensive momentum. Some of those turnovers were due to trying hard to make good plays. Others were just brain dead plays. Bama didn't hit their free throws, gave up too many offensive rebounds, and had no answer to Florida's inside game. How could they. They were overpowered. At 6-8 athlete who can jump is going to get more rebounds that a 6-4 player most nights.
In this, our month of disbelief, Tide fans wonder what happened. How did all this go so wrong? You would have to ask four young men. Grant reinstated Steel and Releford telling the press they were men of high character. That means they made a stupid mistake out of their normal behavior. But what does that mean about Mitchell and Green? It might very well say they are through this season. Grant will do whatever is necessary for the overall good of the program, and to insure that the foundation is built on character and not characters. What is so sad for Green and Mitchell is that might have been remembered for taking the Alabama to the NCAA Tournament. Instead, and unless things change, they will remembered as the players who placed self above team and cost us all a season.
Realistically, if all the players return before the Tennessee game and gets a win, the Tide still has a chance to make the NCAA. It seems the NCAA (if bracketologists are correct) really wants the Tide to make it. Right now we are clearly on the bubble. It is a bubble we created and we simply don't have enough manpower to put together enough wins without Green and Mitchell. Whatever happened with the pair, the coach is adement, and he enjoys the full support of Mal Moore. Maybe its one of those things we really don't want to know what happened, or is continuing to happen. Green who was a dead lock to make first team All-SEC is seeing that slip away as well as any hope to be drafted.
These type suspensions follow players on draft day like a vulture follows a staggering cow. Green knows this. Mitchell knows this. Even I know this. What in the world could this pair be thinking? I have to admit to being upset with them. I also have to admit to this pervasive sense of sadness that surrounds all the fall out from this. This little Crimson nightmare is the type of story you tell your children in order to make them understand how we are all interconnected. Four Freshmen and two juniors are not going to beat Florida unless they are from Kentucky. It is hard to believe that Trevor Lacey was even a starter in high school, much less a two-time Mr. Basketball. His game as vanished. Randolph has remained great on defense but his offense has fallen off the map. Cooper was a cold as a dead fish, and as nervous as a chain smoker working the line in a dynamite factory in tonight's game. I think the pressure was too much for the freshman.
There is this Hindu Proverb that I find helpful in my life when things are not going well. It helps me when I doubt myself. It also helps me when I am far to full of myself. "There is nothing noble about being superior to some other man. True nobility is being superior to your previous self." Maybe that is what the pair of castaways have not yet considered?
I am proud that Grant has made such a tough decisions. I am reassured to know that such men still exist.
Will Mitchell and Grant be allowed back?
Alabama's heart and tenacious defense carried the team to a 26-26 first half tie. In the second half it was all Florida. I'm sure all Alabama fans were hoping for a miracle. I know I sure was. Hope springs eternal and that second half seemed like an eternity. After shooting 60% in the first half the Tide went stone cold in the second. Florida opened up with red hot second stanza shooting, and the Tide didn't have the firepower to match them.
I have no doubt that had Mitchell and Green played the outcome would have been different. There is no reassurance either will return. This is a terribly sad situation to the fans who love their team, and to those players and coaches who have worked hard to have a good season. At this moment Alabama is the worst team in the SEC. I can't see them winning many, if any, remaining games in the rough and ready SEC.
I wonder what Mitchell and Green are thinking at this very moment. I couldn't stand to watch my teammates suffer because of my actions. The pair should offer to walk on broken glass and beg Grant to forgive them so all of this can end. The hard part about punishing those suspended players is that everyone else gets punished as well. The kids gave it their all tonight, but the the talent level was too much to make up. Great coaching can carry you a long way, and in the first half it did. Bama had a chance. 10 turnovers in the first half made it impossible for the Tide to sustain any offensive momentum. Some of those turnovers were due to trying hard to make good plays. Others were just brain dead plays. Bama didn't hit their free throws, gave up too many offensive rebounds, and had no answer to Florida's inside game. How could they. They were overpowered. At 6-8 athlete who can jump is going to get more rebounds that a 6-4 player most nights.
In this, our month of disbelief, Tide fans wonder what happened. How did all this go so wrong? You would have to ask four young men. Grant reinstated Steel and Releford telling the press they were men of high character. That means they made a stupid mistake out of their normal behavior. But what does that mean about Mitchell and Green? It might very well say they are through this season. Grant will do whatever is necessary for the overall good of the program, and to insure that the foundation is built on character and not characters. What is so sad for Green and Mitchell is that might have been remembered for taking the Alabama to the NCAA Tournament. Instead, and unless things change, they will remembered as the players who placed self above team and cost us all a season.
Realistically, if all the players return before the Tennessee game and gets a win, the Tide still has a chance to make the NCAA. It seems the NCAA (if bracketologists are correct) really wants the Tide to make it. Right now we are clearly on the bubble. It is a bubble we created and we simply don't have enough manpower to put together enough wins without Green and Mitchell. Whatever happened with the pair, the coach is adement, and he enjoys the full support of Mal Moore. Maybe its one of those things we really don't want to know what happened, or is continuing to happen. Green who was a dead lock to make first team All-SEC is seeing that slip away as well as any hope to be drafted.
These type suspensions follow players on draft day like a vulture follows a staggering cow. Green knows this. Mitchell knows this. Even I know this. What in the world could this pair be thinking? I have to admit to being upset with them. I also have to admit to this pervasive sense of sadness that surrounds all the fall out from this. This little Crimson nightmare is the type of story you tell your children in order to make them understand how we are all interconnected. Four Freshmen and two juniors are not going to beat Florida unless they are from Kentucky. It is hard to believe that Trevor Lacey was even a starter in high school, much less a two-time Mr. Basketball. His game as vanished. Randolph has remained great on defense but his offense has fallen off the map. Cooper was a cold as a dead fish, and as nervous as a chain smoker working the line in a dynamite factory in tonight's game. I think the pressure was too much for the freshman.
There is this Hindu Proverb that I find helpful in my life when things are not going well. It helps me when I doubt myself. It also helps me when I am far to full of myself. "There is nothing noble about being superior to some other man. True nobility is being superior to your previous self." Maybe that is what the pair of castaways have not yet considered?
I am proud that Grant has made such a tough decisions. I am reassured to know that such men still exist.
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