Alabama Crimson Tide – Takes care of the Kentucky Wildcats

The tide rolled as BAMA plowed over the Kentucky Wildcats on Wednesday nite in Tuscaloosa. In the first half, the Wildcats had lead by as many as nine points but couldn’t quite pull away and finish the job. With 15:39 left in the second half Alabama was on a 13-3 run to get it to 34-33 and only trailed by one. Eventually the Tide regained their composure which capped off a 59 to 55 victory over the Wildcats.

Nick Jacobs came off the bench and lead all scorers with 14, followed by Trevor Releford with 13 and Levi Randolph added 11. For the Wildcats, Kyle Wiltjer had 14 and Julius Mays with 12. At the 4:26 mark, it was Kentucky 44 and Alabama 47 when Lacey went down hard while going to the hoop falling on his right side. His absence didn’t affect the outcome as the Tide still closed out the win and should make for a good SEC conference W.

However to get better, what Alabama should really be concerned about is their suspect defensive play. They don’t get out and challenge the ball when defending, they don’t put a hand out to deny the pass, and they don’t keep their hands up long enough to create any havoc in the middle of the key or in an offensive players face. They are more or less just totally reactive to what the offense player wants to do which may be why with two seven footers they still get out rebounded 31 to 40.

I’m sure Coach Grant has pounded this into their heads on the defensive end but they’ll learn to advance later on and to beat better teams, they’ll have to improve. Otherwise, they’re probably only good for one tournament win come March. It doesn’t have to be that way, they have guys who can create shots and can feed the two seven footers down low for high percentage shots but unless they can get more aggressive on defense I see them having an early exit when March Madness begins. For Kentucky fans, you ought to be a bit worried as well.

p.s. I know the word “nite” is misspelled incorrectly above and really should be “night”, I just prefer it my way. All other errors in grammar are just part of the territory.

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By Roy George