Pathetic. That’s about all you can say for Alabama’s performance in Knoxville Wednesday evening. The Crimson Tide lost to the Volunteers 69-66 in an overtime battle, but the game wasn’t fun to watch.
Tennessee couldn’t shoot the ball (7-37 or 18-percent from 3-pt. range) and still Alabama couldn’t find a way to win on the road. Tennessee played disruptive defense, but can there be any excuse for the turnovers? Alabama’s total was 24, 17 of which were steals by Tennessee.
That is more than pathetic. That is a disgusting stat.
And the failure to foul at the end? Simply inexcusable. Do players not know how to foul? (Apparently they do, Alabama notched a total of 15 for the game.) Were the players unaware you foul to stop the clock? Or did the players just throw-in the towel after the timeout?
Mental lapses like these are perennial problems for Alabama. Seeing it season after season, forces us to ask if will it ever get better? The fear in a growing segment of fans is that it will not.
The team isn’t fundamentally sound, and that has led to Alabama’s consistent inconsistency. It has created serious problems for this year’s team, and while Alabama may make its sixth-consecutive NCAA tournament, the team really doesn’t deserve it based on Wednesday night.