re: tOfficial Alabama Basketball Season Thread | 19-15 (10-8) | #BuckleUp

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we should easily win 20 games in a weak SEC next year.

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... SEC is poised to have its best year in almost a decade.

The following teams return a large amount of their production and/or coached well

TN
MSU
Auburn
USCe
TAMU
Vandy
UF

I'm not by any means saying that Avery is on the hot seat and I know everyone is pointing to next year, but I'm not sold on anything just yet. I just want to see some signs of life. Losing to AU twice and looking bad in the process doesn't give me the warm & fuzzies. I want to see us play over our head against good competition in a few games. Make a mini-run in the SECT like AU did two years ago. Something....anything....that makes me think that things are on track.

Personally, I'm ready for every Grant player to age out of the program.

Still need that new arena.....

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Losing to AU twice and looking bad in the process

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To be fair, Auburn's starting lineup is probably a top 3 talent lineup in the league. We have two 5*, two top 100 and a top JUCO. They can look like shite as FR and poor coaching, but when they play they ball out

Bama at this point in time doesn't have the talent to beat that lineup when it is "hot." Unfortunately for Avery/Bama they've decided to remember what passing and good shooting is whenever they've played

I agree with this. The next two seasons are make or break for both Alabama and Auburn. Anything less than back to back tournament appearances for either would be underachieving.

Avery Johnson's years are kind of nerve wracking for me because I think if he can't get it done who can? He sort of fell into our laps. I imagine Auburn fans feel similar about Bruce Pearl.

Maybe I just don't pay enough attention in the preseason. It seemed like he was happy with the roster. A year ago they gave the "Our guys will go out there and give maximum effort" talk you get when the coaches know the team isn't good. I didn't get that vibe this year.

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Avery Johnson's years are kind of nerve wracking for me because I think if he can't get it done who can? He sort of fell into our laps. I imagine Auburn fans feel similar about Bruce Pearl.

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My concern with Avery has always been that he never coached in college before. Its a different animal than the NBA. Just because he doesn't succeed doesn't mean we can't have a good program. That's why I like Byrne as AD because I think he can help basketball in ways Battle probably never could.

I do agree that if Pearl can't turn around Auburn then that program isn't salvageable. Something tells me there's just something inherently wrong with SEC Basketball in general. There's a great roster of head coaches right now in the league. If the SEC isn't competitive in the next few years then it will never be.

I don't think a program is ever doomed to being shite forever, but Avery was a hire I was legitimately excited for. If he doesn't pan out, we're probably back to playing mid major coach roulette. We could get lucky and find a great one, or we could get a terrible one.

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I do agree that if Pearl can't turn around Auburn then that program isn't salvageable.

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If an AD is willing to throw money at a program and fans willing to show up, any program is salvageable. Most of our donor base lived through Barkley/SonnySmith and Cliff Ellis' good years, so the demand is there.

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Something tells me there's just something inherently wrong with SEC Basketball in general.

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There absolutely is, we live in the South and are a football first region. Think of the ramifications of that

Talent - Think of how Allen Iverson was initially planning to play football before his legal incident. How many kids in Alabama/MS/Georgia choose FB over basketball?

Lebron James was an All State WR in Ohio as a SO (super impressive) and likely top FB recruit. James quit FB to focus on basketball development. That would be unthinkable in the state of AL


Development - Think of the kids who are pressured to play FB, which means all the 7on7s, spring/summer practice etc eats into their on court time to develop not to mention FB season itself

There is a reason so many top basketball prospects from the South are talent projections and aren't nearly as refined


Youth Coaching - We don't have a strong tradition in basketball which means we don't have a lot of great youth basketball coaches to develop kids.

Population Density- So you now have the talent, they are BBall only and a good coach, who are you going to play to improve? In say NYC, you can play 10 AAU teams with DI caliber starting lineups within an hour drive.

On top of that, inner cities are typically hot beds for pickup games with quality competition that further improves players. If you live in rural Southeast, there aren't many pickup games for fun

Pearl understands the rivalry, just like Alabama and Auburn fans do. Also some bad luck on our part. My guesses is that we don't shoot over 40% often, but both times we have vs Auburn, they've shot lights out. I hate always going back to 3-point shooting, but literally, the difference right now is they have the talent to bank open shots and we don't. We attempted 32 3-pointers yesterday and only shot 25% from beyond the arc.