re: Alabama Basketball Megathread | 26-7 (16-2)

Transition efficiency is a pretty big deal once you get to a point in postseason play where every team you face is either good or on a hot streak. If you have a chance to steal some points you need to be able to reliably.

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Apparently our game against Arkansas tomorrow will be the first top 25 matchup in Bud Walton Arena since 1998.

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Yikes

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first top 25 matchup in Bud Walton Arena since 1998

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I find that hard to believe.
I guess Arkansas just hasn't been ranked too much.

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Shocked me tbh. Saw it on the official Arkansas basketball Twitter account, so it must be true. 23 years is a long time.

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It is 100% true, there were a few times that Mike had them in the top 25 but it was just off timing with playing on the road and playing weaker opponents. Shame we won't get a full crowd in Bud for the game, could live up to one of the most exciting games of the year. I'm sure Bama isn't too upset about that though.

Per my perusing, the last home game Alabama had that was ranked vs ranked was February 17, 2007


#25 Alabama (18-7) (5-6)

vs

#20 Kentucky (18-7) (7-4)


That was the Alabama team that broke the NCAAT tournament streak and lost to UMass the 1st round of the NIT.

A truly classic Mark Gottfried team:

- started 13-1 and ranked #8 entering SEC play

- went 7-10 in SEC/SECT play ---- 6-2 at home and 1-8 on the road/neutral, including losing their first 3 SEC road games by 27, 21 and 24 pts.

Gottfried is 8-9 this year, 4-6 in conference, 2nd to last place.

15-17 last year.

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Gottfried is 8-9 this year, 4-6 in conference, 2nd to last place.

15-17 last year.

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That's honestly a lot better than I'd expect in a season where there is no crowd to give the team energy.

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Back in the days when winning all your home games, and "stealing" one or two on the road in league play was the benchmark.

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It was wild how every road game played out to the exact same script, and it didn't matter if it was a top 10 Florida team in Gainesville or a 8-11 South Carolina team in Columbia.

- Start off down 10 at the first tv timeout - probably including 2-3 stupid turnovers and whole lot of contested iso jumeprs
- make some 3s, cut it to 5-7
- allow another run to end the half - down by 12-15 at halftime
- opponent immediately inflates lead in first 5 minutes of 2nd half - down 18-20 at 12 minute mark
- EITHER quit and lose by 25 or make a little run to cut it to 9
- go final 3 minutes without scoring


Bonus - Opponent shoots their season best from 3PT range against you, obviously



It was almost impressive

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This is why I said I was surprised that Gottfried has won 8 games this season. Without the energy of a friendly crowd his teams almost inevitably came out flat and played themselves into an early hole.

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Maybe he took some Zen meditation classes in LA and became a master motivator.