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A lost season: Alabama basketball

What happened to the talk after the Iron Bowl about Alabama being a basketball school?

That’s gone. It’s forgotten.

This year’s basketball team…sucks.

There really isn’t a kinder way to say it. There are legitimate issues. Steele is injured. Davidson has intense personal problems dealing with the death of his brother and girlfriend.

But the problems with Alabama basketball go deeper. It isn’t one or two players. Right now it is the entire team and yes, perhaps even a little Mark Gottfried.

Anyone remember the Kevin Scarbinsky column in the Birmingham News from early January? Remember how he hinted that Gottfried and the basketball team were jealous of the money and attention Saban and the football program was getting?

Assume for a moment Scarbinsky was right. (Yes, I know that is a big stretch, but play along!) If it were correct, I believe we have a good clue as to what is wrong with the basketball program: they were focused on externals instead of doing what it takes to win.

Anything and everything has distracted this team from its mission. The talent is there, but the commitment to winning isn’t. Instead of achieving, the team looked for reasons to be offended and looked at press clippings of how good they were. A good coach finds a way to reach the players and motivate them to achieve. So far, Gottfried is failing this year.

Sidenote: Here’s the game boxscore. Hendrix had an exceptional game. He was really the only bright spot. The 3-pt. shooting was horrible: 1-13.

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