mercifully, the season comes to an end
(because if you are good enough to be ranked as high as number 4 in the country before christmas, the nit does not count)


reasons why alabama sucked this year...

1) ronald steele was hurt. you have to start here. the following reasons will cover the majority of the season's ills, but if your preseason all-american guard is no better than 75 percent all year, you have a major problem.

2) alabama runs one play. alabama runs the "ucla high-post offense", which means both big men find space at the free throw line where the ball is dumped into one of them. as this happens, one wing player, usually alonzo gee, dives into the lane for a pass and the other wing waits for the defense to drop down and holds his spot for a possible three. alabama ran this play to perfection countless times in it's run to number four. the play stopped working in the second half of the notre dame loss and the season was lost after that. yes, mark gottried, other coaches watch tape and make adjustments. you do not. alabama's other "plays" consisted of dropping the ball into richard hendrix and letting him bull his way to the goal and dribbling around the perimeter before yakking up a three. these are not plays. this is just basketball. easy to defend if you've ever played seven year-old recreation ball.

3) mark gottfried waited to find depth until the season was lost. who is justin tubbs? mikhail torrence? demetrius jemison? yamene coleman? alabama's bench. you are not in the minority if you do not know these bench players. mark gottfried was not introduced to them until february.

4) mark gottfried cannot coach defense, and evidently, neither can any of his other coaches. if you've watched one alabama basketball game, you've watched them all. no other sec team gives up more wide open looks from three as does alabama. which brings us to number 5...

5) mark gottfried cannot coach effort. every team plays the 2-3 zone, just like alabama. every team plays man-to-man, just like alabama. other teams just play hard. and therein lies the difference between every other sec team and alabama. why did alabama squeak out victories at home and get blown out on the road? because talent can win games at home. effort wins games on the road, and alabama didn't play hard. whether it was the "star theory" i alluded to earlier in the season that caused this or something else, the fact remains that if you watched an alabama game, any alabama game, you wondered why the other team always looked like they were playing harder than the tide. this was absolutely excruciating to watch, game in and game out, if you wanted alabama to live up to it's potential. which brings us to our final point...

6) alabama was the biggest underachiever in college basketball this year. nationally, alabama had a preseason first-team all-american in ronald steele. they had a preseason top ten ranking. and they had many "experts" hailing them as final four contenders. that's all well and good and it makes this season even harder to swallow, but let's keep the final point local. the subjective criteria will be this. in the sec, with my eye judging the league's talent, how many nba-level players does each sec roster contain? we'll start at the top.

florida - (4) espn projected this week that florida's frontline (noah, horford, and brewer) would be lottery picks in june. their point guard, taurean green, could also play in the nba. so, they are stacked. they should be good. and they are. they are the anti-alabama.

alabama - (4) steele, davidson, hendrix and gee. florida? potential number one or two seed. threat to win the title. alabama? nit bound. ouch.

tennesse - (2) lofton and maybe one of their young big men.

kentucky - (2) morris and crawford.

lsu - (1) big baby.

miss. st. - (1) jamont gordon.

vandy - (1?) maybe derrick byers.

for every other team in the league (arkansas, auburn, ole miss, georgia, south carolina), it would be a stretch for me to think that they would place a current player on an nba roster in the next three years. and compared to every other team in the league, save florida, alabama is absolutely loaded. so, take away an injured steele. that still leaves mark gottfried with three blue-chip cards to play with. but, he didn't know how. he just knew how to clap his hands like mike dubose and throw his jacket on his floor. those were his go-to, inspirational antics. and so alabama will take their talent and lose to some mediocre team in the nit. i will not be watching when it happens. i will be watching real teams with real coaches play in the real tournament.

mark gottfried, as has been addressed, can recruit his butt off. think of the talent on the elite 8 team from a few years ago. think of gerald wallace. kennedy winston. rod grizzard. ron steele. richard hendrix.

then again, maybe i should be happy with that. incredible talent. consistently in the top 25 and in the tournament, but no real chance to win a national title. because when you get into the tournament, the guy on the other bench is always going to outcoach your coach. maybe i should be happy with the ceiling being set at the sweet 16, but i am not.

neither should alabama.