Tide programs prepare for busy weekend

March 20, 2008

Ken Rogers

To call it a busy weekend for Alabama athletics is understating things.
The Crimson Tide baseball team will play host to fourth-ranked Vanderbilt for its SEC home opener this weekend. Alabama is 9-10 with a five-loss losing streak. The Tide was swept at Kentucky last weekend and dropped a pair of midweek games to new Orleans at Sewell-Thomas Stadium in Tuscaloosa. Vandy is 13-4. Game times are Friday at 6:35, Saturday at 4:05 and Sunday at 2:06 for a game to be televised on CSS.
That’s hardly the only game in town, though.
Alabama’s gymnasts wrap up their regular season at 7:30 Friday night against Auburn at Coleman Coliseum.
The Tide gymnasts had a tough trip to the West Coast a couple weeks ago, but bounced back with a season-high score of 197.3 against Penn State last week.
Alalbama has earned 93 consecutive wins against Auburn since 1979. Last year’s victory, by less than half a point, came down to the final rotation.
The team has Senior Night ceremonies and will honor scholastic all-American Kaitlin White and two-time Olympic silver medalist and two-time NCAA champion Terin Humphrey.
Five Alabama swimmers are competing at the NCAA Championships in Columbus this weekend.
Agustina de Giovanni, Erin Sparks, Ida Persson, Vanessa Von der Heyde and Brooke Baldi will be competing in individual and relay races.
The Alabama golf team won its fifth tournament championship last Sunday and moved to No. 1 in this week’s Golfweek/Sagarin rankings. They already were No. 1 in the Golf World/Nike Coaches’ poll. Senior Michael Thompson (No. 7), junior Matthew Swan (15) and senior Mark Harrell (43) are all ranked in the top 50 for individuals by Golfweek.
Alabama softball player Jordan Praytor and Tide golfer Joseph Sykora were nominated by the school for the SEC’s prestigious Boyd McWhorter scholar-athletic post-graduate scholarship. The scholarship has been awarded by the SEC to the league’s top male and female athletes since 1986. The scholarship winners will be announced April 6, in conjunction with National Student-Athlete Day.
Even basketball has some news. Alabama, which will be participating in the Maui Invitational this fall, will be in good company in Hawaii this Nov. 24-26. Six of the seven Division I teams who will play in the event, hosted by Division II Chaminade, have made the NCAA Tournament. Those teams are North Carolina, Texas, Notre Dame, Indiana, Oregon and St. Joseph’s. Last fall’s championship game of the Maui Invitational featured Duke against Marquette, two other NCAA Tournament teams.
Oh, yeah. Football starts back Monday. The Crimson Tide was off this week for spring break after getting in two of their allowed 15 practices.

Storm overshadows great game

March 14, 2008

Ken Rogers

The season Tide fans would like to forget ended on a night everyone connected with Alabama basketball will remember.
You know what? A tornado really does sound like a train as it barrels through.
The tornado—officially it’s being called strong winds, but if that wasn’t a twister I don’t want to be around when the real thing hits—disrupted a lot more than a college basketball game Friday night at the Georgia Dome.
Much of this area, CNN Center, the Dome and the Georgia World Congress next door, were damaged. Homes, too. Atlanta TV is reporting injuries, but not from the Dome.
If Mykal Riley played his last game for Alabama Friday night, it’s unfortunate no one will remember it. He put the game into overtime with a 3-pointer at the buzzer, and his 3-point attempt with 0.5 seconds left rattled in and out.
Mark Gottfried, who noted Riley’s improvement weeks ago, before it was apparent to everyone else, said that’s what seniors do.
“I think (Chris) Lofton made one today late in the game for Tennessee,” Gottfried said. “That senior year everything is a little different. I think even Mykal Riley here coming down the stretch, you know the clock is ticking down on you and everything matters more. Practices are a little more important. Games. Everything. He stepped up for us and I thought was just absolutely terrific. He carried us here, I thought, in the last five or six games.”
At the end of regulation, he gave Alabama new life.
“Our guy stepped up there again I thought in a tough situation. He had a lot of courage, stepped up there and made it.”
Riley nearly had another magical moment at the end of the game. His 3-pointer would have won it.
“When the shot left his hands on the last shot, I watched the ball, and my heart said, that is in the basket. We’re winning the game. We’re playing tomorrow,” Gottfried said.
“It seems like the ball went down in the net and came out of there. That’s kind of been our year. It’s been in and out.”

Tide takes 7-point halftime lead

Ken Rogers

Alabama went from the team that couldn’t shoot straight to the team that couldn’t miss.
As a result, the Crimson Tide overcame a 10-0 deficit and took a 36-29 lead into halftime.
It took less than two and a half minutes for the West-champion Bulldogs to take a double-digit lead. MSU used its powerful inside game to dominate early.
Alabama, outmatched inside, simply went outside and seemed to find a soft spot in the State zone. Brandon Hollinger, Mykal Riley, Rico Pickett and Alonzo Gee all buried 3-pointers in the final 10 minutes of the half. The Tide was 8-for-15 on 3-pointers and just 12-for-30 from the field. State helped by rushing things with its lead. The Bulldogs were just 1-of-10 in 3-pointers in the first half.
Alabama capitalized on 10 State turnovers to build the lead. Alabama enjoyed a 15-3 advantage on points after turnovers in the first half. State continued to pound Alabama inside, outscoring the Tide 18-4 in the paint.

Vols survive scare against Gamecocks

Ken Rogers

While Alabama rested Friday afternoon before its meeting with Mississippi State, the SEC Tournament rolled on with a pair of first-rate games.
It wasn’t easy, but Tennessee, the regular season champion, won for the first time in this tournament since 2005. The Vols survived a gutty effort South Carolina and edged the Gamecocks 89-87. Chris Lofton, who had shot just 1-for-9 from 3-point range, buried a wide-open three with 11 seconds remaining.
The lead changed four times in the final minute. Dominique Archie’s jam put the Gamecocks up 85-84 with 51 seconds to play. Tennessee’s Tyler Smith, who scored 11 straight for the Vols, finished that streak with a layup with 37 seconds left. Carolina’s Archie made a layup at the 23-second mark.
Then Lofton, who scored just 10 points, came off a backscreen set by Wayne Chism and coolly buried the 3-pointer with 12 seconds left.
“There’s several options on every play,” Vols coach Bruce Pearl said. “Chris was going to get the ball. JaJuan (Smith) was the first option ... but Chris was going to get that touch.”
Devan Downey missed a 3-pointer for the Gamecocks, who couldn’t get another shot off an inbounds play with 1.4 seconds remaining.
“I wanted to go for the kill. I wanted to to beat them,” said Downey, who led Carolina with 26 points. “The shot fell a little short, but it felt good. If I had to do it again, I would take the same shot.”
Instead, it fell to Lofton to save the Vols an embarrassing loss to a team they had blown out twice in the regular season.
“As a shooter, you always think the next one is going in,” Lofton said of never hesitating to take the shot despite a subpar performance.
Dave Odom, who had earlier announced his retirement effective at the end of the season, had hoped his career wouldn’t end Friday.
“I could be happier had we won, but I don’t know that I could be any prouder,” Odom said. “Tennessee is the odds-on favorite. They’re close to a double-digit favorite over anybody they play. Today will help them. They were close to losing today, and that will get their attention.”
Pearl said that South Carolina “gave us everything we wanted tonight.” But he also noted his team’s offensive production overcame its defensive lapses.
“Don’t be too hard on the Vols,” Pearl said. “We shot 57 percent. We had 35 field goals and had 27 assists.”
The Vols reached the semifinals for the first time since 1991.

Vols in a dogfight against South Carolina

Ken Rogers

The more I see them, the more Tennessee reminds me of a car with all the bells and whistles.
They are sleek, smooth, powerful and seductive. But will they break down on the side of the road?
While Alabama rested before Friday night’s contest with Mississippi State, I took advantage of the opportunity to see the SEC champion Vols play South Carolina. This game hasn’t provided many answers to that question.
Carolina outfought LSU Thursday, and Tennessee pressed and pushed the pace early trying to take advantage of that extra day of rest.
It didn’t make a difference in the first half, but with 10 minutes to go, the Gamecocks look a little leg weary. Still, they are in the game despite clearly outmanned physically.
It’s funny that the longer this stays a game, the louder the crowd gets for Carolina. It’s obvious most fans here are wearing orange. But the Gamecocks are picking up fans of the other teams—especially the thousands in the blue shirts—as the game rolls on and remains close.
Saw a couple of weird plays in this one. Tennessee’s mammoth 6-10, 267-pound freshman Brian Williams was called for offensive goaltending. Williams went up through the basket to help tip-in a shot that may have fallen anyway. Williams motioned to the refs that the basket should count, but they correctly waved it off. Nice try, though.
At the end of the half, with 1.4 seconds left, he Vols inbounded and fired up a halfcourt shot. The ball rebounded off the back iron, went up and bounced between the shot clock support and the top of the backboard. The ball rattled there a moment, then fell into the basket. Again, the basket was correctly disallowed.
UT should wear down Carolina in the closing minutes, but it will take a better opponent to determine if the Vols are a Ferrari or a Fiero.
Game 2 Friday will match Arkansas and Vanderbilt in what may be the most entertaining game of the tournament so far.
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