Donovan rips Gators after loss

March 13, 2008

Ken Rogers

OK, I was surprised at Alabama’s domination of Florida in the first half of Thursday night’s game in the Georgia Dome.
But Billy Donovan wasn’t.
The Florida coach made it clear in his postgame comments that his Gators got what they deserved. He also made it clear it won’t be much fun to be a Gator basketball player in the offseason.
“I’m not surprised,” said Donovan, who hadn’t lost in this tournament since 2004. “A lot of these guys talk a really, really good game, a lot of them do. I think our deficiencies, so to speak, that have affected our team are exposed and I have not been able to, as a coach, get them to focus on it, improve it, make it better or buy into it, or whatever word you want to use.
“No, I watch it every day, so I’m not surprised at all. ...  The reason we got down by so many points is because we didn’t shoot 54, 54, 55 percent as we did in some of these last couple games (losses to Kentucky, Mississippi State and Tennessee). ... It’s just that we got exposed because we shot such a low percentage that we really didn’t give ourselves an opportunity to win the game by getting down so many points.”
Donovan seemed irked that Chandler Parsons said the team wasn’t ready to play.
“I’ve got to take responsibility for that because I think that’s my job,” the coach said. “That’s disappointing to hear. ... I don’t know how you can’t be excited. I think that that’s kind of the way Marreese came out.”
Marreese Speights was yanked from the game just 65 seconds in. He led the team with 15 points in just 20 minutes. But he was the poster boy of Florida’s defensive effort— or lack of it.
“We have some, I think, talent issues on the defensive end of the floor, foot speed-wise, that sometimes is not all their fault,” Donovan said. “But also, I think, we have a commitment issue, which bothers me as a coach because I just got done coaching a group of guys the last two years that were so committed.”
The coach rejected the idea that his senior-less squad will mature and get better.
“It’s hard for me to be excited going forward because I don’t see things getting fixed, you know?” Donovan said. “It’s in front of our guys, what it takes to win, and, like I said, for whatever reason, I haven’t brought it out in them. They’re not committed to it. But I’m not necessarily really that excited about these guys being sophomores, to be honest.
“I think people’s initial thing is, well, they’re going to get older. I never believe in that. I don’t think people change a whole lot, and I don’t think you’ve seen the basketball team change at all this year. So it’s hard for me to get overly thrilled or excited.”

Catching up at the SEC Tourney

Ken Rogers

I’m frequently asked what’s my favorite event to cover in sports. I couldn’t give you a single favorite, but among them is the SEC Basketball Tournament.
It’s great basketball, sure. But it’s a mini-reunion and social event, too. Almost a professional convention, really, for coaches, administrators, and, sure, media. You get to see friends here that you may not see until next March. Just catching up is cool.
Greg Seitz, the medial relations director at Jacksonville State University, Josh Underwood, his assistant, and I took a minute before the Bama game. Seitz, it seems, is one of the most popular guys in Atlanta. Everybody wants to know who will be Jax State’s next basketball coach.
There are candidates. Alabama assistant coach Philip Pearson, former Tide head coach David Hobbs, even ex-Auburn coach Cliff Ellis were among the names suggested to Seitz by curious writers during our brief conversation.
If he knows, he wasn’t saying.

Tide, Trojans see positives come from series split

March 06, 2008

Ken Rogers

Alabama’s 8-2 victory over Troy on Wednesday in Tuscaloosa earned a split of a fine mid-week, non-conference series.
Both teams can take positives out of the two-game set. Alabama centerfielder Alex Kubal and rightfielder Kent Matthes took turns making big catches in Tuesday night’s windy contest at Riverwalk Stadium in Montgomery.
Kubal’s full-out diving grab robbed Troy’s Beau Brooks of a double in left-center in the ninth inning.
The Tide (4-5) had just one senior in Tuesday’s starting lineup. Shortstop Josh Rutledge and second baseman Ross Wilson — who his 1-2 in the batting order — are both freshmen.
Alabama’s brightest spot of the series came when Austin Graham, a sophomore pitcher, worked into the seventh inning in his first start in almost two years.
Troy (9-2) got plenty of positives from the series, too. Shohei Fujita’s pinch hit, game-winning single in the bottom of the 10th off Tide closer Josh Copeland in Montgomery was a huge boost.
“I liked Shohei in that situation,” Troy head coach Bobby Pierce said. “We had the bases loaded, so they had to throw strikes. He was a right-handed sidearmer going against a left-handed bat. And really, in that situation, you just want to stay out of the double play. Shohei can run pretty well.”
Geneva’s Michael Precise went 2-for-4 with a game-tying, sixth-inning home run for the Trojans.
Freshman reliever A.J. Howard from Houston County earned the victory in relief. He worked out of bases-loaded trouble in the top of the 10th to keep the game tied.
He ended the inning by throwing home on a high chopper by Rutledge.
“Coach Pierce had just come out to the mound and said it was a fast batter,” Howard said. ‘I remembered that waiting for the ball to come down. I thought I had to come home and, fortunately, (catcher) Beau Brooks was there to make a play. He’s always around the ball.”
Brooks had leaped onto the field chasing the high chop, but scrambled back to the plate for the force.
Pierce said he was torn about pulling Howard.
“The game dictated that he stay in,” Pierce said. “But then I realize we’re tied with Alabama in the 10th inning and I’ve got a freshman pitcher in the game. But A.J. wanted the ball in that situation. He’s a competitor. “
The series was full of them. One little play slipped past almost unnoticed, but it proved significant.
In the eighth inning, with Troy trailing 4-3 and a runner on first, Bart Pettus legged out an infield single, just ahead of Rutledge’s throw from deep short. A wild pitch moved both runners into scoring position with one out. Adam Bryant’s infield single then tied the game. Pettus’ hustle play allowed the inning to play out as it did.

Players have to take responsibility in discipline debate

February 27, 2008

Ken Rogers

If Nick Saban never expected to face the media after a loss to Louisiana Monroe, how do you think he felt about Tuesday’s topic?
After eight Crimson Tide players had been arrested since he arrived in January 2007, Saban felt the time was right to discuss law and order — or the lack of it — in his Alabama football program.
It was a tough assignment because the coach couldn’t make sweeping edicts about what will happen the next time a Crimson Tide football player is arrested.
Situations that call for discipline rarely are as black-and-white as a kid sticking a gun in the face of two people and robbing them of $26.
And let it be noted that Saban responded swiftly and appropriately to Jeremy Elder’s criminal behavior. Elder has been sent home for at least a year. The University doesn’t have to let him come back. It would be shocking if it did.
Unlike that bizarre act, most the off-field problems Saban has dealt with is unruly behavior in and around nightclubs. Late at night.
Now, no matter where you stand on this issue, it’d be tough to convince me that anything good happens after 2 a.m. at or near a bar. That’s not the time to debate Tuscaloosa police, campus officers or even bouncers, no matter how badly they may be behaving.
Rashad Johnson isn’t a troublemaker, but he was the eighth player arrested since Saban’s arrival. It was Saturday morning on the Tuscaloosa Strip. He was charged with disorderly conduct.
Disorderly conduct is not armed robbery. It may not be excusable, but it’s not armed robbery.
Saban knows that. But he also knows that perception can be reality. If Alabama is seen as a place for thugs, he won’t sign the nation’s top recruiting class next year.
His frustration level rises when his players pop off and ignite problems that could and should be avoided.
“There are degrees of everything,” he said Tuesday. “And I’m not going to make comments, but guys have to know when to walk away and keep their mouths shut and that’s probably been the biggest issue that we’ve had to deal with relative to being respectful to people in authority.
“And that could happen to anyone. And that can be disorderly conduct. So does that… there is relative degrees for what you get arrested for relative to the penalties can be.
“The problem is, as soon as you say arrest — when you get a traffic ticket, you’re really getting arrested, too — when you say arrest… and I have never dealt with what we’re dealing with here.  We have an issue that we have to work on internally and improve our players awareness of how they need to represent themselves and act. And we also need to do a better job of educating them and developing relationships with people so we have a better understanding of how to educate them so we don’t have these issues in the future. It’s not good for the community, it’s not good for the person, it’s not good for the program, it’s not good for the young men, it’s not good for anybody, it’s not good for the reputations, it’s not good for anybody.”
Saban can make players run stadium steps all day and sweep up lobbies of senior citizens’ centers all night. But there really has to be some accountability from the players in these cases. Does anybody say, man, it’s 1:30, let’s call it a night?
The coach said repeatedly last year that curfews and putting places off limits often creates a forbidden fruit attraction. Besides, these guys aren’t high school kids anymore. In fact, part of the college experience is stretching your limits and your body clock. No one I went to school at Troy didn’t enjoy a late-night outing at least once in a while. Some of them majored in it.
Saban hinted that his players may be restricted in where they go.
“I have always been a strong proponent as the NCAA has of players being able to do and live the same student experience as anyone else,” Saban said. “If we continue to have problems, there may be some places that we are going to ask our players not to go. There have been some limitations already placed on that. It’s a team issue, it’s not going to be discussed publicly.”
Again, personal accountability apparently wasn’t a strong enough deterrent. If you’re responsible for memorizing a playbook and being on time to class and practice, you ought to be able to impose a little self-discipline on a weekend night.
Frankly, it’s easier said than done. After all, Mike Price failed to grasp that he was the football coach at the University of Alabama all day, every day. You give up a lot to be a part of that program.
The players in it need to realize that they are University of Alabama football players all the time, especially when they are in Tuscaloosa. They, too, give up some things to be part of the program. If that price is too high, we’ll miss them.
Everybody wants to win. Saban certainly does. But not at all costs. He pledged again to do things the right way. He vowed to work to get that message through to his players.
We’ve heard a good bit of this last year. Something about the anger and awkwardness of Tuesday tells me the message will be delivered more forcefully this time.
But they still have to listen.

Bama takes some momentum on the road

February 14, 2008

Ken Rogers

Wednesday night’s Alabama victory over Ole Miss was noteworthy not for what Alabama did, but what it didn’t do.
The Crimson Tide didn’t beat itself. The litany of self-destructive behavior evident in previous close-but-no-cigar losses was missing.
Free throws? Alabama was 24-for-32. It ended the first half making 10 straight foul shots and was 10-for-12 in the final three minutes of the game.
Poor defense? The Tide played intense, aggressive defense and appeared to contest more shots than in any other SEC game they’ve played. Ole Miss shot 36.5 percent from the field. More telling, the Rebels turned it over 16 times. Alabama had 42 rebounds (Ole Miss had 44) against the top-rebounding team in the SEC.
Poor 3-point shooting? Alabama wasn’t great, but its 6-for-22 night was good enough to stay with Ole Miss, which shot 8-for-24 from 3-point range.
In short, Alabama made Mississippi beat them, and the Rebels didn’t play well enough to do it. Ole Miss fell to 0-5 on the road in the SEC.
Alabama is 0-4 on the road and will visit South Carolina desperate to snap that skid on Saturday. Alabama hasn’t won on the road in the SEC since beating LSU in Baton Rouge last season for its lone league road win. The year before that, the Tide was 3-5 on the road in the SEC, winning at Auburn, Kentucky and Ole Miss.
The Crimson Tide has just two more conference home games—Feb. 27 against Arkansas and March 8 against Vanderbilt. It needs to find ways to win on the road in the final weeks.
South Carolina is 3-6 in the SEC and just 1-3 at home. Road trips to Auburn, Ole Miss and LSU are also upcoming. Those are winnable games, if the team plays smart, solid basketball. Wednesday offered some signs of improvement. More will be needed to win on the road.