Alabama (MSG), Sat., Nov. 8, 12 Noon, FS-1/ 1050 AM

I don’t disagree at all that it is roster too, but they executed really well. They have a superior philosophy and structure. They were not only screening like crazy, they were moving screens.

Jackson, Sellers, and Sanon could go toe to toe with their best shooters and probably even beat them. But they get no open looks, there is ZERO spacing, no ball movement, barely any screening or motion (besides Ayo).
Pitino is just not a good offensive coach.

We did not deserve to be within 20 points of them tonight.
 
Rocket said:
Bana has better guards and better depth and they are a better team.....FULL STOP!
WE WILL NOT BE RANKED 5 NEXT WEEK.

You should see Bama's preseason schedule! Nate Oates prepares his teams for March early in NOVEMBER! Our team will need all season and hope we find our outside shooting by the BE tournament.
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Rocket, Bama has many more returning players than we do. Hence, their early season execution being so much better than ours. In spite of that we were right there at the end.
 
Marillac2 said:
Not at all. I wrote that we are a top 20-25 team. Will probably be our second best team since 2000. I think we can see the second weekend of the tournament if we get the right matchups.

We aren’t a title or even final four contender though.
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Quite fair.
 
I thought this was a good learning experience for the team. They got an SEC team early and now they know what that sort of team looks like.

All four of our bigs played great in the first half. They lost some juice in the second but still played very well overall.

The issue is the guards were MIA in the first half. They played better in the second but all three of them have a lot of room to improve on D and can use better judgment on offense. I don't know whether some of the traits can be coached out of some of them, but I trust Pitino to get them coached up.

Too much Ayo in the second half, Pitino wanted to get him out but there wasn't a stoppage and eventually he had to call a TO to get Hopkins back on the floor.

Difference in the game is we got killed on the boards and made a few too many mistakes. We will be ok.

I cannot imagine that Darling would have made a positive difference in this game against Holloway or Philon but YMMV. To me this was the exact sort of game that illustrates why he should have a specified role. But OTOH nobody else was exactly awesome at guard although Sellers competed his ass off. I like that kid a lot.

We will be fine. Next test in a couple of weeks, hope for a better grade. Lots to use from this game to help get ready.
 
Marillac2 said:
We should have lost by 20. It was a complete mismatch. The score does not tell the story. They crushed us on the glass. They got into the lane at will. We don’t have a single guard that can stay within 5 feet of a step-back.

We got a very friendly whistle and Zuby played the best half of his life.

Alabama manufactured dozens of buckets. We maybe manufactured 4 all game. The rest was Norm Roberts level one-on-one.
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Agree with your points as written. But there were a few minutes near the end of the game Zuby came up small. He missed a free throw when we only down by 2 or 3, he makes a great move underneath and throws up a wedgie and he has the ball with about a minute to go trying to lead a fast break when he pulls a behind the back dribble move, in traffic near the out of bounds line and loses the ball. These plays cost us at least 5 to 6 points. CRP appeared to ream him out and it even looked like he was headed to the bench.

You are absolutely correct that Mitchell and Sanon were no shows. For those who keep track of this statistic, Mitchell was a -16, Zuby was a -14, Sanon was a -12 and Hopkins was a -8. Prey got the highest score with a +7.
 
Just back from MSG. Our PG situation needs to be resolved. It’s early so no panic but it’s an issue

Hope Bama is elite if not we aren’t as good as we’d all hoped
 
Marillac2 said:
I don’t disagree at all that it is roster too, but they executed really well. They have a superior philosophy and structure. They were not only screening like crazy, they were moving screens.

Jackson, Sellers, and Sanon could go toe to toe with their best shooters and probably even beat them. But they get no open looks, there is ZERO spacing, no ball movement, barely any screening or motion (besides Ayo).
Pitino is just not a good offensive coach.

We did not deserve to be within 20 points of them tonight.
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But yet we were. It wasn’t an accident. This is the downfall of having an NIL roster full of new players. Takes time to have roles defined and gel both offensively and defensively. In spite of all that we were right there.
 
I'll start with a positive. I have been going to almost every home game for the past 25 years. When SJU was making a run halfway through the 2nd half, it was the loudest I have heard the Garden in quite some time. Otherwise....

*our help defense was very poor. Yes, our guards were beat off the dribble, but help was late often coming well after deep lane penetration. Rick can and will fix this, but yikes....it was real bad.

* Jackson finally got more aggressive in the 2nd half. Need more of that.

*Today was Rueben Prey's best game as a Johnny.

*I fully support more minutes for Ayo

*Pressure is now on for us to get at least two wins against Iowa St., Baylor, Ole Miss and Kentucky. (have to go at least 2-3 against these strong OOC games).
 
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