Alabama Report Card by 001

Mississippi State won this game to go up 15-7, 6-2 SEC and regain the lead in the SEC West. Our guys played just well enough to garner this win. It was a game of short runs by both teams. We would play well for a while and then go brain dead for a while. Same with Alabama . The officiating didn’t help either. There were times when I thought they were playing football on the court and officials let it go, especially Tom Eades. Our free throw shooting was pretty good until the last minute of the game when we starting missing. Overall I guys did a nice job of keeping us ahead from after the first 16 minutes of the first half until the final buzzer. Several things stand out from this game. Stansbury got his 200th win. We swept Alabama for the first time since the 1998/99 season and three straight over ‘Bama since the 1984/5 season.
OFFENSE B-
As I said above, we played just well enough to win this one. We had some 3 point shooting that was timely to either put us ahead or lengthen our lead when tied. Gordon had a djouble-double17 points and 10 assist. Up until the last minute of the game, we were shooting free throws respectably. We had four players in double digit scoring and ended up with four blocked shots. But Varnado did alter some shots. Ben Hansbrough was a welcome sight and proved his mettle with 10 points. Ben’s first 3 pointer came at a very opportune time. We were leading 9 to 8 and his shot put us up 12 to 8. It is just that we found ways to stay ahead of Bama and win the game. The biggest down side of our offense was offensive rebounding.
DEFENSE B-
I don’t think our defense played with the same energy that Bama did. Whereas Bama was playing in your face and bumping, our guys didn’t play with that same degree of energy. And if they did, they were called for fouls. However, we collected nine more defensive rebounds than our opponent. Several times on turnovers and fast breaks, we had guards that stayed with the opponents and caused them to miss lay ups. We also had six blocked shots. I would have sworn we had more from just watching the game. I felt we did a good job of defending the 3 point shot also. Bama was just 7 for 21 in that category. Our guys did a pretty good job getting Bama into foul trouble too with Hendrix fouling out in the last 48 seconds of the game.
ASSIST TO TURNOVER RATIO B-
Because of going brain dead from time to time, we had more turnovers than we would like to see with 13. That was offset by the number of assists we had. In this game we had 16 assists to the 13 turnovers. Gordon had 10 by himself. Although the stat sheet shows Varnado with only one assist, I would have sworn he had three from just watching the game. We still need to work on the turnovers to try and keep them in the 9 to 10 per game. That would help us tremendously in the second half of the SEC play.
REBOUNDING C+
This improved over the previous two games. We out rebounded Bama 41 to 38. We had 34 defensive to Bama’s 25, but fell short on the offensive end, getting beat 13 to 7. We desperately need to improve in the offensive rebounding category and sooner rather than later.
3 POINT SHOOTING C
We fell down somewhat in this category, going 6 for 20 for 30% overall. We were 4 of 11 for 36.4% in the first half and 2 of 9 for 22.2% in the second half. The saving grace in this area was when the 3 points were made. On at least 3 occasions they stopped Alabama runs. Stewart was 3 for 8 and Hansbrough was 2 of 5.
FREE THROW SHOOTING C
We shot free throws well up until crunch time when Bama was fouling our guys in the last minute of play. In the first half, we were 3 of 4 for 75%, but only managed 12 of 18 for 66.7% in second half. Although get only got two attempts each, Bailey and Hansbrough were both perfect at 2 for 2 from the line. In the last minute and a half of play, we only made 6 of 12. We still need work in this category.
OFFICIATING D-
I almost gave this category an F, but decided not to for several reasons. The officials were letting the guys play and two of the officials (Mike Nance and Anthony Jordan) called a pretty decent game. But Tom Eades (Head Official) should have sat on the Bama bench during time outs because he was Alabama sixth player on the court the entire game. Of interest to note, during a dead ball situation Anthony Jordan ran the length of the court to get into “Got Fried’s” face and they had a heated exchange. I felt for a moment he was going to throw a “T”, but he didn’t.
OVERALL C+
I think we played fairly well in this game, but not with the energy that is necessary to win all of our future games. We just need to continue to improve in some areas of the game and we can still end up with a very good season.