Crimson Red Sports

The Alabama men's basketball team will continue Southeastern Conference play when it travels to square off against Mississippi State on Wednesday night at 8 p.m. CT.

“We’re looking forward to the challenge of going on the road again at Mississippi State,” UA head coach Anthony Grant said. “Obviously, Mississippi State has gotten off to a great start, 2-0 in the league. They had a great home win against South Carolina and then going on the road at Georgia and getting a win there. I’ve been very impressed watching them on film. They’ve got a lot of young guys who are doing an outstanding job, you look at the way they’re defending and the way they are winning ballgames. Coach (Rick) Ray and his staff have done a great job of getting those guys acclimated to his system, getting the experience they need and playing very good basketball right now at an extremely high confidence level. For our team, we are coming off a good win here at home against Tennessee so we’ve got to take the momentum, experiences and everything we learned from that game and try to carry it over as we go on the road.”

The Crimson Tide (9-6, 1-1 SEC) is coming off a 68-65 victory over Tennessee last Saturday in UA’s first home conference game of the season. Junior guard Trevor Releford and sophomore guard Trevor Lacey led the Tide with 15 points each, while sophomore guard Levi Randolph had 12 points and six rebounds in the win. Senior guard Andrew Steele added 11 points and a season-high four steals.

I wonder what channel this will be on DirecTV.

OK I heard on the news on CBS42 that Releford was injured and not sure he would get to play? If so, then this is killer. RTR!

It'll be interesting to see how Levi Randolph responds tonight. For a couple of seasons I've been waiting for him to kick his game up a notch. He has been a good defender, rebounds well for his size, and has a great basketball sense or feel for the ball. Anytime there is a big scramble for a tipped or loose ball, Levi is somewhere around. He has a tendency to look for someone to feed when he has the ball, rather than taking it to the goal himself or working for a shot on his own. I always thought he would "grow out of that" but he has not. Maybe putting the ball in his hands at the point may force him into a larger role in our offense. RTR to LR.

Wow, Lacey is on fire behind the 3 point line.

He went 3 for 3 on 3s in the first minute or so to start the 2nd half. They now lead by 31, but LKacey is NOT the story tonight. We are getting scoring from all directions. Cooper has been wearing his man out. Randolph has at least 18 and Jacobs is ruling the lane. RTR

Tide wins 75-43.

Bama shot lights out-- waaay over their heads. With everyone NOT sitting around waiting on Releford and Lacey to score, a new Bama team emerged.
Randolph finished with 18 pts, Jacobs with at least 11 rebs. and in double figures, Cooper with maybe his best game. Lacey started the 2nd half with 3 three pointers to fire up the Tide during a long MSU drought. Best game of the year as a team. JMHO

BTW, the ESPN box score has gone wacko so I can't see the final stats yet.

I gathered from a CAG interview last night that Releford was held out purely as a precautionary measure. I would imagine he is practicing this afternoon.