Storm overshadows great game
March 14, 2008
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.”
