Posts Tagged ‘mark fox’
Georgia looks to make it five in a row at home against the Aggies
After a pair of successful road wins at South Carolina and Tennessee over the past week, the Georgia Bulldogs (11-11, 5-4) will find themselves in unfamiliar territory on Saturday: home.
The Dawgs – one of the SEC hottest teams at the moment – will be playing host to the Texas A & M Aggies, the team that Georgia beat back on January 26th, marking the beginning of this four-game winning streak. In that game, UGA rode Kentavious Caldwell-Pope’s 22 points en route to a 59-52 victory. The Aggies’ star player, Elston Turner, managed 19 points, but it took a 5 for 14 shooting night from the floor to get to that total.
Since the loss to Georgia, the Aggies have been playing some inspired basketball as well, winning two of their last three games. One of those wins came on Thursday night in a 70-68 home upset of #21 Missouri. The lone loss during the Aggies’ recent three-game stretch came in overtime to the Kentucky Wildcats last Saturday.
Tomorrow’s game in Athens has the potential to be an influential game in the conference, considering that these two teams are just a game apart in the SEC standings. With the added depth to the league, Saturday’s game provides Georgia with a chance to further separate itself from the middle of the pack; conversely, the Aggies will be looking to entrench themselves deeper into the center of the SEC standings.
Fans attending and watching the game in Stegeman tomorrow should be treated to a pretty good defensive display. In league play, Texas A & M and Georgia rank 3rd and 4th in the conference allowing just 60.7 and 63.2 points per game, respectively. The Aggies basically play a pressure man defense for 40 minutes, so UGA must be strong with the ball and not let their offense get pushed too far outside of the perimeter.
With the way Kentavious Caldwell-Pope has been playing over the past five games, I would not be at all surprised to A & M shading help to KCP’s defender for much of the game.
Pope has been nothing short of spectacular over the Dawgs’ run, averaging nearly 22 points and 7 rebounds a contest during these past 4 games.
Georgia hasn’t won five SEC games in a row since 2001.
Twelve years later, Coach Mark Fox’s team has a chance to do it again.
South Florida tops Georgia 64-53 in SEC/Big East Challenge game
In his post game comments, Mark Fox lamented his team’s defense, saying that it “failed them” throughout the game tonight.
I think when Coach Fox watches the tape of his team’s 64-53 loss to South Florida tomorrow he is going to see that the offense was Georgia’s Achilles heel in this contest, especially down the stretch.
Donte Williams got a stick-back to tie the game at 50-apiece with 4:04 remaining, following an array of UGA offensive rebounds and flailing Bulls’ bodies.
After this basket, however, South Florida’s defense clamped down on the Dawgs, forcing Georgia into a slew of poor offensive possessions in which the ball circled the perimeter until a last-second shot was tossed up by a UGA player in an attempt to beat the shot clock.
The Bulls closed out the last 4 minutes of the game with a 14-3 run that crushed any hopes that Georgia might have had of stealing a game on the road in the newly constructed Sun Dome arena.
The South Florida offense was extremely balanced on Friday night with four players finishing in double-figures. The Bulls were led by sophomore point guard Anthony Collins, who poured in 17 points to go along with 10 assists.
On the flip side, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope was the only Georgia player to score in double-digits, netting 19 points while shooting 50% from the floor. When the Bulls heightened their defensive focus on KCP late in the second half it really exposed just how one-dimensional this Georgia team can be offensively.
Donte Williams was a ghost for much of the night, scoring 2 points on just 4 field goal attempts, while Neme Djurisic couldn’t find the rim, hitting only 3 of his 13 shots from the floor.
John Cannon tied his season-high with 8 points to go along with 3 rebounds, yet he spent the final quarter of this game on the bench. Cannon appears to be the most gifted offensive big man on this team, and I think it’s imperative that he is on the floor during key stretches of games to take some of the pressure off of Pope.
Lastly, the Dawgs must get more production from the point guard position. Against the Bulls, Vincent Williams and Charles Mann combined for a total of 3 points and 4 assists in 40 minutes of play. When Georgia sees zone defenses, it is up to these guys to penetrate and draw defenders so that the zone breaks down (like how Gerald Robinson, Jr. did the past two years).
Looks like the Bulldogs will have to wait a bit to start their first win streak of the season.
ESPN tabs Georgia as 7th best coaching job in SEC
ESPN.com is currently celebrating Coaches Week by going conference to conference, ranking the basketball coaching jobs in each of the major power conferences.
The ESPN panel tabbed UGA as the 7th best coaching job out of the newly expanded 14-team league, citing the following:
“The talent in the region has been there for years, but the competition for it has always been intense. Getting players to stay in Georgia is a tough sell with so many options. Basketball has had its moments in Athens, but it’s never going to be No. 1. The facilities aren’t top-notch in comparison to the rest of the league, either. Salaries are competitive, but never going to be in the upper echelon. UGA will have its moments of success, but expecting the Bulldogs to be an NCAA tournament team on a regular basis is unrealistic.”
Ouch – that last sentence can’t sit well with the expectations that Coach Mark Fox must have for his program.
Their point about the facilities – Stegeman – is pretty much spot-on. The facelift that the gym received a few years ago was a nice cosmetic improvement for the exterior, but the inside of the Coliseum still desperately needs to be upgraded. At the least, it should be altered so that Dominique Wilkins doesn’t find it just as he left it when he returns to Athens.
What does everyone else think? Do these rankings seem fair?
Georgia basketball adding some games
The Georgia Bulldogs Men’s basketball team will open up the 2012-2013 season against the Jacksonville University Dolphins on Friday November 9th in Athens. The Dolphins, who hail from the Atlantic Sun conference, finished last year with an 8-22 record.
Looking ahead to 2014, it appears that the Dawgs will play in the National Invitation Tournament (NIT) Season Tip-Off, a 16-team tournament that was won last season by Syracuse.
The game with Jacksonville should serve as a nice warm-up for Georgia before they begin play in the 2012 Legends Classic. The Dawgs will serve as one of the regional hosts for this prestigious tournament along with Georgetown, Indiana and UCLA. The championship double-headers will be played on November 19-20 at the new Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.
Coach Mark Fox’s team could see Tony Parker very early in the season – in a UCLA uniform.
Kentucky smothers Georgia 57-44 in Athens
Let me begin by stating that work in Atlanta sure does come early on Wednesday after attending a 9:00PM EST tip-off in Athens on Tuesday – I think my preference is for the 8:00PM start, though the ESPN coverage is nice publicity for the Georgia (10-10; 1-5) program.
The game last night was entertaining for the first 15 minutes when Georgia was going toe-to-toe with the best team in the country. Freshman Nemanja Djurisic rang up 10 points with almost 9 minutes remaining in the first half on a pair of three’s and some inside buckets. Nemi finished the game with those 10 though, joining senior Dustin Ware as the only other Bulldog to score in double-digits (Ware led the team with 12 points).
With all the firepower on Kentucky, I never would have guessed that senior reserve Darius Miller would have been the player to torch UGA last night. Miller led all scorers with 19 points, including a 4 for 4 performance from beyond the arc on what were mostly uncontested three-point attempts.
Coach Mark Fox kept his team in a zone defense for the entire first half, enabling Miller and his teammates to enjoy a plethora of wide open looks from the wing position. Kentucky responded by connecting on 6 of 10 threes before the break to open up a 38-26 halftime lead.
Fox finally moved his guys into a man defense for most of the second half and the Dawgs limited Kentucky to only 19 points on just 7 of 23 shooting from the floor.
The problem, however, was that the only thing worse than Kentucky’s offense after the break was Georgia’s – the Dawgs tallied up merely 18 points on 8 of 25 shooting on field goal attempts.
Give Kentucky some credit – they defended well last night.
But give Georgia some credit too – they put on one of the worst offensive displays I have seen this season in college basketball. The Bulldogs shot a dismal 34.5% from the floor which certainly will not get it done against a team of Kentucky’s calibre.
Georgia’s two leading scorers – Gerald Robinson, Jr. and Kentavious-Caldwell Pope – combined for just 13 total points and shot 24% on field goal attempts. Again, offensive production like that from your team’s two best players will not work when the opposing team is Kentucky.
The entire second half was pretty much a sleeper due to extreme levels of futility from both school’s offenses. The difference, however, was that the Kentucky players appeared to have mentally “checked out” of the game for the final 10 minutes while Georgia’s guys were still attempting to put the ball in the basket (though unsuccessfully).
The Dawgs have now lost all three of their “big” games at Stegeman this year against Cincinnati, Alabama and Kentucky. In all three of those games Coach Fox almost stubbornly kept his team in a zone defense, enabling opposing team’s to burn Georgia from beyond the arc. Against the Bulldogs, Cincy, Bama and the Cats all hit more three’s than they were averaging per game on the season.
I understand Georgia briefly using a zone to confuse opposing teams, but I do not understand abandoning the man defense altogether. Good teams (Cincy, Bama, Kentucky, etc.) with good point guards ultimately start to break down zones to find wide open shooters on the wings and in the corners.
Another negative of playing primarily zone defense is that it makes it awfully hard for your team to find their block-out assignments and rebound. The Dawgs are near the bottom of the SEC barrel in rebounding so the last thing that they need is to make the task of securing boards more challenging.
The Dawgs do not have a lot of team strengths to brag of this season, but I do feel like they play pretty good man-to-man. Robinson has the athleticism to stick with just about any point guard, and KCP’s length and quick hands allow him to frustrate wing players.
The Bulldogs’ bigs are generally pretty useless on offense, but I think that they could hold their own in a man – at least Fox has 5 or 6 to sub in so they could afford to dish out some fouls.
Sorry for the soap box rant, but I’m getting tired of seeing our team put a position (permanent zone) against good teams where they are ultimately destined to fail.
Georgia gets Ole Miss at home on Saturday 4PM
The Dawgs will need more physical play from Nemi on Saturday
Finally – an opportunity to write about the Georgia Bulldogs in 2012 following a win!
The Dawgs victory over Tennessee on Wednesday marked their first win over a team from a major conference since beating Southern Cal back on December 17, 2011. USC has dropped 7 of 8 games since that loss, making them an ugly 5-14 on the season. I’m not certain where the victory over the Trojans ranks on Georgia’s 2011-2012 resume, but following the win the Dawgs proceeded to sleepwalk through a slate of games that included Mercer, Furman, Winthrop and Deleware State (with Mercer being the only team in that bunch with a winning record).
The point being that UGA didn’t exactly thrive off of the success earned in Los Angeles.
But with a new year comes new opportunity, and this Saturday that opportunity stands in the form of the Mississippi Rebels (12-6; 2-2), who are fresh off a 75-68 upset of in-state rival #15 Mississippi State. Ole Miss’ RPI stands at a solid 41 after their win over the maroon Bulldogs (the red Bulldogs’ RPI is sitting at 108).
If Georgia fans have trouble seeing all the action on the court Saturday it could be because the Rebel players are blocking their view. Coach Andy Kennedy’s roster doesn’t feature a player shorter than 6’4″, which is probably why he’s coaching the best rebounding team in SEC at nearly 44 boards per game.
Ole Miss has been particularly tenacious on the offensive glass where they are bringing down a conference-leading 17.5 rebounds per game. The Rebels sport an offensive-rebound percentage of nearly 45%, meaning that they are grabbing almost half of the missed shots that they toss up. Georgia, who ranks 11th in the SEC in defensive rebounds at just over 18 per contest, had better lace up their shoes and be ready to block out or they might get eaten alive.
The main rebounding culprits for Coach Kennedy are juniors Reginald Buckner and Murphy Holloway, who are averaging 11.3 and 10.7 rebounds per game, respectively (making them 1 and 2 in the conference in that category). Buckner, who is the Ole Miss all-time shot-block leader, has been swatting 3 shot attempts per game so far in SEC play. He and Holloway, along with guards Nick Williams and Jarvis Summers, are all scoring in double-figures against conference competition, with Williams leading the team at 13.5 ppg.
Fortunately for Georgia Coach Mark Fox forwards Donte Williams and Nemanja Djurisic has done a nice job of picking up the scoring void left by the slumping guards Dustin Ware and Vincent Williams. Through four SEC games, Ware and Williams are netting only 5.5 and 2.5 points per night, respectively – numbers that are well below their season averages.
Donte and Nemi have really started to solidify themselves in the paint for Georgia in conference play. Both Williams and the Montenegro Express are contributing 9.5 points and nearly 5 rebounds for Coach Fox against SEC competition.
Georgia will be looking to carry the momentum from their win over Tennessee into Stegeman on Saturday in hopes of starting their first SEC win-streak of the year.
If the Dawgs manage to pull out a victory it sure would serve to boost their confidence heading into next Tuesday’s home matchup with #2 Kentucky.
Georgia bests Vols 57-53 in OT thriller, picking up first SEC win of 2012
In a span of what couldn’t have been more than 9 seconds, Georgia‘s (10-8; 1-3) Nemanja Djurisic blocked a shot and took the ball coast-to-coast, finishing with a running lay-up off the glass that put his Bulldogs up 52-50 with only 2:17 left in the overtime portion of the game. If I hadn’t seen this progression of plays with my own eyes I wouldn’t have believed that they had actually transpired.
Regardless though, the Tennessee Volunteers (8-10; 1-3) wouldn’t go away, and senior Skylar McBee buried a three-pointer on the ensuing possession to reclaim the lead at 53-52 with just 2:03 remaining.
The Dawgs came out of a timeout and ran a designed backdoor cut that saw Gerald Robinson, Jr. receive a pass and then immediately dish it to a slashing Donte Williams who finished the play with a basket while being fouled. With Georgia now leading 54-53, Williams stepped up to the free throw line for a chance to finish the three-point play.
Donte missed the free throw attempt, but Kentavious-Caldwell Pope sneaked into the lane and snagged the offensive rebound. Despite the fact that Georgia failed to capitalize on KCP’s board, Nemi was able to tie up the Tennessee defender on the rebound, giving the Dawgs the ball (because of the possession arrow) once again.
This play was absolutely huge for Georgia, who was leading by a point, since it gave them a new shot clock with only 41 seconds left in the game. Tennessee Coach Martin forced his team to foul GR2, who calmly made both free throws, giving his team a 56-53 lead with only 27 seconds left.
After a Trae Golden miss on the other end the game was Georgia’s and the Dawgs ended up winning by a final score of 57-53.
The effort plays at the end of overtime by KCP and Nemi were indicative of the workman-like effort that Georgia gave Coach Mark Fox for 45 minutes on Wednesday night.
Sophomore Donte Williams definitely brought his lunch pail with him to Stegeman, bringing down a team-high 8 rebounds to go along with 11 points. Williams looked comfortable playing with his back to the basket again tonight, and he’s now scored in double-figures in two straight games.
The Dawgs came into the game with some of the worst team defense statistics in the conference, yet they were able to hold the Vols to their second-lowest offensive output of the season. UGA limited Tennessee to under 40% from the floor and just 2 of 16 from beyond the arc, while forcing the Vols into 20 turnovers.
Tennessee was led offensively by Trae Golden, who finished the game with a hard-earned 16 points.
Robinson carried the Bulldogs offensively with 16 points to go along with 7 rebounds and 5 assists. This game certainly wasn’t one of Gerald’s better shooting performances as he finished only 6 of 19 from the floor. However, when the game was on the line Georgia was able to count on their senior leader, who scored the game-tying lay-up with 18 seconds left in regulation as well as the two aforementioned free throws at the end of OT that helped the Dawgs pull away with the victory.
The two halves and overtime of basketball played in Athens tonight could in no way be classified as “pretty”, with both teams combining for just 4 three-pointers on 34 attempts. I’m sure the Stegeman rims are sore after playing host to a game in which neither team broke the 40% field goal barrier.
Sometimes teams just find a way to win by grinding it out though, and that is exactly what the Georgia Bulldogs did tonight at home in Athens.
The Dawgs picked up their first win of 2012 and they no longer have a goose egg in the SEC win column.
Coach Fox and his team should enjoy this victory because they sure earned it.
This Saturday the Bulldogs get Ole Miss at home with an opportunity to get to 2-3 in conference play.
Georgia hits the road to take on Florida Tuesday night
The Georgia Bulldogs (9-6; 01) and the Florida Gators will both be searching for their first conference win of the season when the two teams square off in Gainesville on Tuesday night. The Gators should be in a particularly nasty mood after suffering a 67-56 loss at Tennessee on Saturday in their first SEC game. Couple that with the fact that Georgia hasn’t won at the Stephen C. O’Connell center since 2002 and it should be pretty clear that the Dawgs have quite a challenge awaiting them.
The 56 points that Florida put up in Knoxville was their worst offensive output of the season and highly uncharacteristic of this Gator squad that has been scoring at a torrid pace so far this year. Florida ranks 6th in the nation with nearly 84 points per game, and they have been deadly from behind the arc where they are sinking just under 41% of their three-point attempts (11th in the country). The Gators are basically a well-oiled machine on offense, dishing out 17 team assists per contest (9th in the nation) and sporting an assist-to-turnover of 1.47, tying them for 6th in the country in that category.
All five of coach Billy Donovan’s starters are scoring in double-figures, but the strength of this Gator team resides in its backcourt, which may be tops in the SEC. Junior Kenny Boynton has gotten out to a phenomenal start this season, leading his team with 19.1 ppg and making over 45% of this three-point attempts.
Senior point guard Erving Walker has been his usual self, scoring 13.4 ppg to go along with 5.1 apg. Despite Walker’s small stature (5’8″) he is very good at driving the ball to the basket and drawing contact.
As if it wasn’t enough that Florida brought back the duo of Boynton and Walker this season, they also added a freshman sensation in guard Bradley Beal who is scoring 14.1 ppg and hauling down over 5 boards per contest.
Georgia Coach Mark Fox should have his team in a man defense for most of Tuesday since this hot-shooting Gator team would no doubt feast on the open looks that come against zone defense. The Dawgs’ will need to be physical and relentless on the defensive end if they hope to hang around in this game.
UGA is 1-2 in true road games this season, and Tuesday’s contest will mark the first SEC game away from Athens for the young Kentavious-Caldwell Pope.
Any thoughts on how Georgia can pull this one out?
Georgia opens up SEC play with Alabama on Saturday night
The Georgia Bulldogs (9-5) begin their 2012 Southeastern Conference schedule on Saturday in Athens against the Alabama Crimson Tide (11-3). This Alabama team is going to look nothing like the slew of small-conference foes that meandered through Stegeman Coliseum (and almost won – see Winthrop game) over the December holiday break.
Rather, the Tide are an athletic, physical bunch that should contend for the conference title. This Bama team is almost identical to the one that beat Georgia twice last season, when the Dawgs frontcourt featured Trey Thompkins, Travis Leslie and Jeremy Price.
Alabama coach Anthony Grant has always been known for preaching defense, and his team this year has bought in hook, line and sinker. The Tide play a smothering man defense that has them peppering the national team defensive rankings in nearly every category that counts – yielding just 55.6 points per game (9th) and holding opponents to 36.4% (6th) from the floor and 25.9% on three-point attempts (5th).
The Tide have already held four opponents this season under 50 total points, with two of those victims being Maryland and Georgia Tech (a team the Dawgs lost to earlier in the year).
Alabama’s star power resides in its frontcourt where they feature senior JaMychal Green and junior Tony Mitchell. Green, a preseason All-SEC First Team member, has been slowly working his way back into the Tide’s rotation after suffering a shoulder injury that kept him out of the team’s wins over Oklahoma State and Jacksonville. He did play 22 minutes in Bama’s win over Georgia Tech earlier this week, and he should be ready for even more minutes against the Dawgs on Saturday. Green is a load to handle in the paint, and he leads this team in scoring with 15.3 points per game.
The high-flying Tony Mitchell (All-SEC Second Team selection) plays alongside Green on the block where is netting 15.1 points and bringing down a team-leading 7.4 boards per contest. He’s generally regarded primarily for his athleticism, but Mitchell can actually be quite effective from the perimeter where he’s knocking down nearly 35% of his three-point attempts.
Sophomore point guard Trevor Releford has done an excellent job of running Coach Grant’s offense this season, contributing 12.4 points to go along with 3.4 assists. Georgia’s Gerald Robinson, Jr. has been in a bit of a defensive funk lately, and he’ll need to snap out of it by tomorrow in order to slow Releford and this Alabama offense down.
The Dawgs are riding a five-game win streak into Saturday’s conference match-up, albeit it came against fairly weak competition. However, Georgia’s offense has improved dramatically since the start of the season when 8-minute scoring droughts were regular occurrences. Over the past three games, the Bulldogs are shooting 47.4% from the floor and nearly 39% from beyond the arc.
Freshman Kentavious-Caldwell Pope has had a pretty successful first half of the season, leading the team with 14.1 points to go along with 5.3 rebounds per game. The real season starts now though, and Georgia desperately needs KCP to continue to play at a high level as the Dawgs navigate their way through what should be a challenging SEC schedule. I am interested to see how Pope handles the intense defensive pressure of a conference game, especially on Saturday where he will be facing maybe the best defense in the SEC.
On paper Georgia does not stack up well against the Tide, who are loaded with talent and firepower. However, this Alabama team does like to press and push the tempo after missed field goal attempts, which could in effect serve to help the Dawgs stay competitive in this game. Georgia’s lack of an inside presence has made their halfcourt offense unproductive, and the Dawgs are clearly at their best when the guards are running the court and scoring in transition.
Bama does not shoot the ball well from the outside – just 27.2% on threes – so don’t be surprised if Coach Mark Fox mixes in some zone defense to entice the Tide into putting it up from beyond the arc.
The atmosphere should be a little more raucous inside Stegeman on Saturday night compared to December since football season is over and the students should be back from winter break.
Honestly, I’m not sure what to expect from Coach Mark Fox’s team in their first conference game. Earlier in the season the Dawgs struggled to score to start the second half, though recently they have been sluggish out of the gates. At times Georgia has pushed the ball up the court relentlessly, while at others they have fumbled through halfcourt offensive sets for minutes on end.
The season starts in Athens on Saturday – what does everyone think?
Georgia ends 2011 with an underwhelming 58-51 win over Delaware State
Georgia (9-5) came away from Friday’s contest with Delaware State (4-7) with a win, but similarly to the Winthrop game on Tuesday, it didn’t come easily.
The Bulldogs got off to another dreadful start, making just 2 of their first 9 field goals attempts and with 12:58 left in the half they trailed the Hornets 14-4. Georgia reclaimed the lead on a Dustin Ware three-pointer that put them up 20-19 with only 6:11 remaining before intermission.
The highlight of the afternoon came just before the half when Kentavious-Caldwell Pope launched a shot from beyond half court that beat the buzzer and drew nothing but nylon, putting his Bulldogs up 32-29 heading into the break.
Luckily for Georgia, Delaware State went frigid in the second half, connecting on less than 27% of their field goal attempts. The Dawgs weren’t much better on offense after halftime, making only 37.5% of their shots from the floor and turning the ball over 7 times – probably a big reason why the Hornets were able to hang around for most of the afternoon.
The game seemed in hand after KCP buried a three from the corner to put Georgia up 52-46 with only 4:28 left, but then the freshman managed to turn the ball over on UGA‘s next possession and then proceeded to foul Delaware State guard Casey Walker on his ensuing three-point attempt. Fortunately Walker, who led the Hornets with 16 points, only made 2 of the 3 free throws. Georgia’s Gerald Robinson, Jr. iced the game on the Dawgs’ next possession by scoring on a nice drive through the lane, and the Dawgs pulled away for a 58-51 victory.
GR2 didn’t score a single point until the 16-minute mark in the second half, and he finished the game with just 8 points to go along with only 1 assist.
Dustin Ware led all Georgia scorers with 15 points, and if it weren’t for his 3 three-pointers before the break the Dawgs could have really been in some trouble going into the second half.
Sophomore Donte Williams had one of his more productive games a Bulldog, scoring 12 points and bringing down 9 rebounds.
All and all, the Dawgs didn’t give the few thousand fans that showed up to Stegeman Coliseum much to be excited about before the start of conference play. Once again, Georgia struggled to put away a team (at home) from a mid-major conference with a sub-.500 record.
At this point, it has become painfully clear that even the worst teams in college basketball can come into Athens and hang with the Bulldogs if Georgia plays the game at a slow pace. Without any post players that can consistently score on the block, the Dawgs’ offense is at a huge disadvantage when trying to create points in the halfcourt set.
I strongly believe that it would behoove Coach Mark Fox and his team to start integrating more press into the game plan in an attempt to speed up the tempo – Fox has been subbing players in and out at a torrid pace this season, so one would assume that this team could handle the rigors that come with applying full-court pressure?
Georgia won its fifth-straight game today and improved to 9-5, but the last two games have left me especially worried about the daunting slate of SEC games looming in the Dawgs’ immediate future – Alabama, (at) Florida and (at) Vanderbilt.
The Dawgs open SEC play at home against Alabama on Saturday January 7th. The Crimson Tide are a big, physical athletic bunch that feature All-SEC bigs JaMychal Green and Tony Mitchell – this is basically the same Alabama team that beat Georgia TWICE last season (and that was when Trey Thompkins and Travis Leslie were still donning the Red and Black).
Coach Mark Fox has seven days to come up with a game plan for the Tide, and I am hoping with all hope that it involves relentlessly pushing the ball up the court.
