This story from some of the guys down at the University is pretty interesting. THEY GOT TO CARRY NICK SABAN'S GROCERIES! Haha. Good quotes from Kirk Herbstreit as well. This looks to be a solid year.
If you didn't already know, Vanderbilt KILLED Alabama in Nashville again. The final was 94-73, but it wasn't really that close. Read my previous post regarding the dangers of keeping Ronald Steele on the floor and religiously playing a 2-3 zone against good shooting teams.
Ray Melick has a good article about whether or not the Dolphins are serious about hiring Mike Shula. People in Miami seem to be ok with the idea, especially since it could just be a one year thing while they wait on possibly Cowher, Parcells, and maybe Marty Schottenheimer after next year.
Josh Moon, from the Montgomery Advertiser, has a pretty damn good article up about the hiring of Saban being worth it so he can clean out the Alabama program. He claims that if he can clean out the rift-raft and the so-called "advisors" for the football program, it doesn't matter if he only stays two years - he will have earned his paycheck.
Defensive end Kourtnei Brown says "I am going to Alabama." Pretty cool to hear that from one of the top kids in the country.
Ok, so with last night's humbling defeat to Vanderbilt, Alabama is left to figure out exactly where to go from here. We'll make our predictions on the rest of the season and see how they stack up...
Sat, Jan. 20th - Georgia - W Tues, Jan 23rd - @ Auburn - W (?) Sat, Jan. 27th - Arkansas - W (?) Wed, Jan. 31st - @ L.S.U. - L (?) Sat, Feb. 3rd - South Carolina - W Wed, Feb. 7th - Mississippi State - W Sat, Feb. 10th - @ Ole Miss - W (?) Wed, Feb. 14th - @ Florida - L Sat, Feb. 17th - Kentucky - W (?) Wed, Feb. 21st - @ Tennessee - W (?) Sat, Feb. 24th - Auburn - W Wed, Feb. 28th - Ole Miss - W Sun, Mar. 4th - @ Mississippi State - W (?)
Georgia, this weekend, has the ability to beat us. They do have some talent. Their only issue is they don't have great shooters. If they don't get hot early, Bama will beat them. After a trip to Auburn, which I'm thinking we'll win because we've won God knows how many in a row over them (although you can't bet on anything). We then host Arkansas in a revenge game the next Saturday. I would say we'll destroy them because it's a revenge game...but I think it has to do with whether or not we play that weak 2-3 zone against them. We'll see how Ronald Steele is feeling by that time. Playing at LSU is never easy, but we match up well with them because they have NO outside shooters. And if you think Tack Minor is a shooter, you're an idiot.
After that, we're lucky because we get South Carolina and Mississippi State at home before traveling to Oxford, MS to take on Ole Miss. Any of those teams could sneak up and beat us, but I don't think any of them will. Ole Miss still has the talent problem, and their lack of shooters is good for us.
Then comes the backbreaker of the schedule: @ Florida, hosting Kentucky, and @ Tennessee. I can see all three of them killing us. We might have a shot to beat Kentucky because it's at home and I haven't seen them shoot incredibly well as of yet. I also think that we can run with Tennessee (if Steele is either healthy or out of the game) - I think we can win that one partly because we've beaten them 8 straight times.
Then we get to close out the schedule with Auburn, Ole Miss, and at Miss St. Might lose at State. Doubt it though.
So, if all of that goes as planned, then we will finish the season at probably 12-4 or 11-5. That's ideal. That would put us at 24-6 overall. Which would be around a 4 or 5 seed in the tournament. Which would suck, but could be cool depending on the matchup. 5 seeds are usually seeds that are slumping from the upper tier, so that might work out if we can land a 4 seed.
