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re: 2017-18 Alabama Basketball Season Thread: 20-16 (10-11)
Posted on 2/5/18 at 1:41 pm to SummerOfGeorge
Posted on 2/5/18 at 1:41 pm to SummerOfGeorge
quote:
#256 Auburn
tGOAT Tony Barbee
1
Posted on 2/5/18 at 1:44 pm to Bamafan15
quote:
Probably a good thing we missed it. Grant making back to back tourneys would’ve just kept him around even longer
Don't get me wrong... I think Avery Johnson is a much better fit for us, BUT back-to-back tournament appearances would have gone a long way in recruiting, which was ultimately his biggest failure because he could never fill out a roster.
Posted on 2/5/18 at 2:06 pm to BigBird09
Maybe. But he still didn’t show any signs of knowing how to coach an offense. I know we give Avery a hard time, but he is a better coach offensively and almost as good as Grant defensively
Posted on 2/5/18 at 2:11 pm to TomRollTideRitter
quote:
tGOAT Tony Barbee
To put it in perspective, Auburn won 18 SEC games including SECT while Tony Barbee was head coach. Both Kentucky + Florida won 18 SEC games in a single year during Barbee's coaching tenure
It is honestly impressive to be that incredibly bad, especially since the SEC was garbage during that span and had plenty of winnable games at the bottom
This post was edited on 2/5/18 at 2:12 pm
Posted on 2/5/18 at 2:13 pm to BigBird09
quote:
which was ultimately his biggest failure because he could never fill out a roster.
I've got to disagree a little.
His problem went beyond filling out a roster. Except for his last class, he seemed to do ok signing kids but he just couldn't keep them.
Between his first year and his last, Ben Eblen, Tony Mitchell, Charles Hankerson, Moussa Gueye, Trevor Lacey, Devonta Pollard, Algie Key, Nick Jacobs, and Karl Engstrom were all contributors that left early.
Lacey, Jacobs, and Pollard went on to have success in other programs and Mitchell is still right on the fringe of NBA time. Hankerson, Gueye, and Eblen were all good enough to go make rosters somewhere else. Of these guys, only Pollard was a situation that nobody could have anticipated.
Bama was dealing with Kentucky-like attrition without attracting Kentucky-like talent. That's a sure path to failure.
Posted on 2/5/18 at 2:41 pm to JustGetItRight
Seems Grant always had a key, season ending injury early every year as well. It probably only happened twice, but seemed like it happened every damn year.
Posted on 2/5/18 at 2:48 pm to JustGetItRight
quote:
His problem went beyond filling out a roster. Except for his last class, he seemed to do ok signing kids but he just couldn't keep them.
I should've said roster management as that is what I really meant. I agree he struggled with attrition, but...
quote:
Between his first year and his last, Ben Eblen, Tony Mitchell, Charles Hankerson, Moussa Gueye, Trevor Lacey, Devonta Pollard, Algie Key, Nick Jacobs, and Karl Engstrom were all contributors that left early.
Lacey, Jacobs, and Pollard went on to have success in other programs and Mitchell is still right on the fringe of NBA time.
He had 5 off-seasons to lose players. In Avery's two we've lost Justin Coleman, Michael Kessens, Nick King, and Brandon Austin. Michael Kessens averaged 13 PPG and 9 RPG in his next season. Nick King is averaging over 21 pts and 8 RPG, and Justin Coleman is averaging around 14 PPG (40% 3pt) and 6 APG. You can expect him to have 1 or 2 more transfers this year as well. The transfer epidemic is a nation-wide problem. The difference between Johnson and Grant is Johnson has done a much better job with roster management. He recruits 1 or 2 guys over the expected limit to account for transfers and unexpected departures. Whereas Grant would recruit 2 guys under the roster limit which depleted the roster after he'd have 1 or 2 departures every year. Avery has also done a much better job on capitalizing on the transfer market (Bola, Giddens, and Mack in just 2 seasons).
This post was edited on 2/5/18 at 2:55 pm
Posted on 2/5/18 at 2:49 pm to BigBird09
I'm sure Armond will transfer, but I can't see anyone else leaving beside Sexton going pro
Posted on 2/5/18 at 2:54 pm to MontyFranklyn
quote:
I'm sure Armond will transfer, but I can't see anyone else leaving beside Sexton going pro
Hall wouldn't surprise me in the least. He's a legit NBA draft prospect this year. Also wouldn't surprise me if we lost Key to transfer.
Posted on 2/5/18 at 3:01 pm to BigBird09
quote:Hall is a legit prospect that would benefit from one more year. Of course that could backfire, see Erwin Dudley. I can see Key transferring as well, but he'd benefit more from staying and adding to the continuity going into next season. If he does bolt, we have Tevin Mack and Herb so we will be okay, but losing Key will hurt.
Hall wouldn't surprise me in the least. He's a legit NBA draft prospect this year. Also wouldn't surprise me if we lost Key to transfer.
We'll still have:
Butler
Petty
Mack
Jones
Hall(maybe)
Reese
AJJ
Smith
Giddens
Ingram
Fleming
Wood
9 of those have lots of experience. Hell we may be better off with Key leaving to shorten the rotation, but I really don't want him to go. If he comes back we will have a rotation of 10-11 and that's alot.
Posted on 2/5/18 at 3:03 pm to Bamafan15
quote:
Maybe. But he still didn’t show any signs of knowing how to coach an offense. I know we give Avery a hard time, but he is a better coach offensively and almost as good as Grant defensively
Agreed on both accounts. Grant was a defensive mastermind that struggled heavily on the offensive end. I still believe he could've produced a consistent tournament team if it weren't for him dealing with a depleted roster every season, which is something I would've taken. I believe Avery has the potential to turn us into a perennial Top 25 team. I'd take Avery over Grant every time, I'm just saying if Grant had consecutive tournament appearances things could've turned out much better than they did.
Posted on 2/5/18 at 3:13 pm to BigBird09
I think losing William Lee to uab cost Grant in the end.
Posted on 2/5/18 at 3:23 pm to MontyFranklyn
Posted on 2/5/18 at 3:47 pm to Lordofwrath88
Miss St -3 Ala
Ala has won 4 straight in the series
10 of 11
124-74 Alabama overall
MSU leads 56-39 at home
MSU looking to win 4 SEC games in a row for the first time since 2006
MSU has lost 4 straight to Ala at the Hump. Never lost 5 in a row.
Ala has won 4 straight in the series
10 of 11
124-74 Alabama overall
MSU leads 56-39 at home
MSU looking to win 4 SEC games in a row for the first time since 2006
MSU has lost 4 straight to Ala at the Hump. Never lost 5 in a row.
This post was edited on 2/5/18 at 3:48 pm
Posted on 2/5/18 at 3:55 pm to BigBird09
Grant would likely still be our coach if he had been a good recruiter. He needed to sign 1 or 2 top ~50 type players who needed minimal development every cycle, but he only signed 2 or 3 guys like that total the entire time he was here. It also didn't help that he was maybe the worst coach in the history of organized basketball when it came to identifying capable bigs. He was never going to be Bo Ryan or Tony Bennett or anything, but if we had 3 or 4 guys on the roster capable of having a big game as opposed to 1 or 2 we would have beaten a lot of those garbage mid-majors we always lost to early in the season that ended up sending us to the NIT.
Posted on 2/5/18 at 4:57 pm to BigBird09
I don't think AJj is as bad as a player as some of the people on this board, but to push out Coleman for AJ jr is a head scratcher.
Posted on 2/5/18 at 5:13 pm to Robot Santa
The funny thing is, is he was actually pretty solid at getting the top guy's attention, but we could just never finish. I've never seen a coach with more rough luck in the recruiting world. The D1 prospects in Alabama were slim to none during his tenure, and other than William Lee he did about as well as you could ask inside the state. And then outside the state, something would always happen to screw us over. Cat Barber (5-star) would've likely been Bama bound if he didn't get sticky fingers on his Louisville visit. Our focus on him down the stretch also lost us a top 100 PG. Cauley-Stein would've been a lock if UK didn't have the very unusual difficulty of landing their top big men targets. His offer was in the last hour and Calipari, admittedly, had never seen him play. That still pisses me off to this day. It seemed like pretty much every year, except maybe the 2011 class, that we had 2 or 3 very close 2nd place finishes for top 100 talent.
This post was edited on 2/5/18 at 5:18 pm
Posted on 2/5/18 at 5:14 pm to Robot Santa
Devonta Pollard being a bust pretty was when I knew the Grant era was now inevitably coming to an end, just a matter of when.
Posted on 2/5/18 at 6:11 pm to BigBird09
Oh you dont have to remind me. I remember all too well. IIRC Cal offered WCS based on watching him play football or something. But honestly, losing a basketball recruit like that, even to a blue blood, just means you didn't do a good enough job recruiting him in the first place. It's not like we are a mid-major or something. Sealing the deal is part of being the HC. Our football recruiting is what it is because Saban is the best closer in the county. I give Avery a ton of credit there. He's doing work on the recruiting trail and getting the kids he wants.
Posted on 2/5/18 at 6:18 pm to BigBird09
quote:
Michael Kessens averaged 13 PPG and 9 RPG in his next season. Nick King is averaging over 21 pts and 8 RPG, and Justin Coleman is averaging around 14 PPG (40% 3pt) and 6 APG.
This sounds nice, but the C-USA and SOCON aren't exactly premier basketball leagues. King and maybe Coleman would contribute here now. Kessens and Austin would not this year or last year.
Grant would lose starters to transfer/discipline. Avery has lost role players.
This post was edited on 2/5/18 at 6:29 pm
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