Bama should get Braxton Key back tomorrow, which should help them. They’re a scary bunch if they figure out their rotations and find that defense they played last year.
SEC Basketball Thread
- Thread starter Denim Vest
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Bama should get Braxton Key back tomorrow, which should help them. They’re a scary bunch if they figure out their rotations and find that defense they played last year.
How Key fits in is a huge part of how they will look for the rest of this year. He and Ingram both have to take different roles now. And that all translates over to their team defense too. Can guys like Ingram and Key play intense, focused defense every minute they are on the court when they may not be getting many looks on offense? Bryce Brown isn't the only guys in hoops history whose offensive game have an impact on his defensive focus and effort.
What's going to be interesting to me about Bama is not only how they play the rest of this year but also how they transition back without Sexton. Big programs like Kentucky and Duke and others are built for one-and-dones to come in and elevate them. Bama and Auburn aren't. The disruption Sexton causes, and it's impact, will be interesting to watch. Avery had a pretty good thing building after last season.
They'll be fine. That's like saying, "what's Bruce gonna do without Austin" and look what's happened so far. They'll continue to recruit well and so will AU.
Yeah Sexton is totally unguardable the way the college game is called. Just another team we are better than if AUSTIN comes back.
He should be a nightmare by tournament time. Though I'll say watching last year the way the game was called in these early months versus the way it was called in SEC play and even in the NCAA tourney was VERY different. Those touch fouls start to disappear and you better finish at the rim some b/c those calls you were getting in December aren't there anymore.
Guard play wins tourney games to me though. If your guards play well you probably win. If they are bad you likely are bounced. You gotta rebound and a post presence helps, but so much of March Madness is guards making things happen....good or bad.
it’s probably part homer and part underestimating just how bad the college game is compared to the NBA...
but I have no faith in Avery Johnson teams to ever score consistently enough to win big... he’ll recruit well enough with the BAMA machine behind him, but he’s going to completely waste Sexton... Markelle Fultz and Dennis Smith didn’t make the tourney last year... it takes more than just a transcendent offensive player to win in college when the corching leaves so much to be desired
if Avery is going to win big, he’s going to have to win UVA style and just grind teams to dust... his clogged toilet offense will hold back Sexton once conference play begins and the competition picks up... and asking Sexton and Petty to defend on the perimeter the way Avery needs them to defend is putting a lot of faith in true freshmen who have never had to defend in their lives... maybe they’re wired like Young Davion - but I’ll have to see it to believe it
maybe they make a Sweet 16 run and their R.O.I. is worth it and they continue to build... but I think Avery is a shit corch who will never get another chance at a Sexton level talent and is going to squander this one
but I have no faith in Avery Johnson teams to ever score consistently enough to win big... he’ll recruit well enough with the BAMA machine behind him, but he’s going to completely waste Sexton... Markelle Fultz and Dennis Smith didn’t make the tourney last year... it takes more than just a transcendent offensive player to win in college when the corching leaves so much to be desired
if Avery is going to win big, he’s going to have to win UVA style and just grind teams to dust... his clogged toilet offense will hold back Sexton once conference play begins and the competition picks up... and asking Sexton and Petty to defend on the perimeter the way Avery needs them to defend is putting a lot of faith in true freshmen who have never had to defend in their lives... maybe they’re wired like Young Davion - but I’ll have to see it to believe it
maybe they make a Sweet 16 run and their R.O.I. is worth it and they continue to build... but I think Avery is a shit corch who will never get another chance at a Sexton level talent and is going to squander this one
I don't know what the situation was with Fultz's Washington team was, but the Bama team is pretty damn talented even without Sexton. It's hard to say that he's gonna be wasted when he's averaging 22 pts a game right now. But I'm definitely no EA when it comes to bball.
by waste I mean - Sexton is going to score 20 a night no matter who is on the court with him, who he’s playing, and who is corching him... but Sextons points don’t equal a good offense... think Kareem Canty, but on a much higher level... Canty could score at will, but he didn’t make the offense better... he didn’t get easy buckets for other guys... there wasn’t an offense built around him - he was the offense
I haven’t watched BAMA much, but Avery has never - in his entire corching life - built a solid offensive scheme... if he couldn’t figure out how to build an offense with Dirk Nowitzki, I’m not worried about him building a coherent, competent offensive scheme with 18/19 year olds - no matter how hulking they might be...
Sexton will score 20 a game because he’s that good... and in college that may be good enough because the product as a whole is absolute garbage... but that doesn’t mean BAMA’s offense as a whole will be good enough to go as far as they should with a talent like Sexton
as a huge Mavericks fan, I can vouch for the ineptness of the Avery Johnson offense. Its been bad everywhere he's gone IMO. Once teams started to gauge what he was trying to do he could never adjust. Not sure who he has on staff to help with that, but they better be good and he better listen to them. He's not going to solve it himself.
I think disappointment for them would be getting to the dance, being something like a 7+ seed and getting bounced on the first weekend. Sexton is going to be a freaking star in the NBA...a guy that everyones knows by year 3 or 4. If you can't see the Sweet 16 with the guy and good talent around him you've wasted your best shot. Would feel the same for AU this year if we had all our guys eligible and playing. We shouldn't be a 1st weekend bounce from the tourney if we had everyone and if we suffered that fate with all our players I'd say it was a total failure and we underachieved. As it stands now, getting to the NCAA's is our mark for success.
Watching Bama right now, and I sure don’t miss the Barbee days where we couldn’t buy an offense and had to rely on our defense holding teams under 50 to have a chance. They are hard to watch if the opposing team can bottle up Sexton.
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Ouch. Lost basically a home game by 16 when favored by 4.
Shut down Sexton and bama is trash.
He didn’t look right tonight. Might be dealing with an injury. But they just don’t look like they know what they’re doing. Honestly (and a lot of Auburn folks have said this but I generally try to ignore it), Avery doesn’t seem to be helping them at all or putting them in good offensive sets, and their defense isn’t as good right now as it has been under him.
I’m in a group text that mainly involves talking about sports, and there are several bama fans in it. They were trashing Key and said he shouldn’t have nearly as many minutes right now. They’re also already getting fed up with having a shitty offense sans Sexton.
Key has been bad since returning. Pressing too much. But I imagine it’s a tough thing to take a back seat to the freshmen they brought in when he was the man last year and expected to be a big part of the team this year.
And while Sexton is great, they don’t use him that well IMO, and the offense seems solely built around him initiating everything. They don’t seem to have much of a plan of attack outside of Sexton off penetration or creating for himself. Avery is showing how difficult it is to play a bunch of young guys with very little true veteran leadership if you’ve never coached in that situation before.
50 pts is a total joke. What an embarrassment to the premiere hoops conference in the country.
UGA put a beat down on temple yesterday. Oh well we play them twice so probably good for our SOS.
UGA put a beat down on temple yesterday. Oh well we play them twice so probably good for our SOS.
Lol. I’m so torn because these losses are taking bids away from the conference. Then again it’s great to see them struggle. Fortunate to be 8-4 they been on the brink in a few games with some really bad teams.
Seen a lot of Bama fans ready to turn on Avery. They're pissed that the offense still sucks even with the new additions, and they think the defense has regressed a good bit.
I think BRUCE would resign immediately if we ever scored under 60.
Y’all want your minds blown. Pts against/ game
Bama 71.8
Boogs 71.5
Just going through the SEC schedule for all the games and Tennessee and aTm have tough starts to the season.
aTm's first 5 games:
at Bama
Florida
LSU
at Kentucky
at Tennessee
Tennessee's first 5 games:
at Ark
Auburn
Kentucky
at Vandy
aTm
aTm's first 5 games:
at Bama
Florida
LSU
at Kentucky
at Tennessee
Tennessee's first 5 games:
at Ark
Auburn
Kentucky
at Vandy
aTm
if only they had some EA in their lives, they would have seen that coming and never gotten their hopes up...
I don’t know how an NBA champion point guard - who survived in the NBA on guile and smarts because he was extremely limited physically - has such a remedial, horseshit, boring, unimaginative offense... but I’m glad he does...
if the freshmen hit a wall and continue to play defense like freshmen, their season could derail quickly considering the apparent improvement of the conference as a whole
I’m trying to temper the amount I criticize Bama until the Boogs whoop their ass.
Plus, I really don’t watch barely any college b-ball besides the Boogs so I can’t really talk about them without pulling words out of my ass.
I did watch about 10 minutes of them vs Texas and they’re quite boring.
Plus, I really don’t watch barely any college b-ball besides the Boogs so I can’t really talk about them without pulling words out of my ass.
I did watch about 10 minutes of them vs Texas and they’re quite boring.
unless BAMA just goes nuclear from 3 - which is always possible because the young guards are really talented - Avery Johnson teams can’t score enough to beat BRUCE teams...
last year was the first year we had anything approaching an actual BRUCE team and they couldn’t score enough to beat us when they had a much better defense and ours was far worse... this year - and most years - will be more of the same...
BRUCE just is not a good matchup for Avery
Yeah I haven’t watched them a ton but it’s mostly Sexton dribbling around and either creating whatever shot he can get or kicking it to Petty. Those 2 take almost half their shots/ gm. Both have hideous looking Js but I guess they can get hot from time to time.
I think I've posted this here before, but Avery's biggest issue is not having the experience to deal with the situation he's in right now. Kinda like Bruce last year, Avery is having to rely on really talented freshmen to improve his team from last year, and that's not easy to do. Their defense has suffered because of it, and their offense isn't signifcantly better because the pieces around Sexton aren't great. What I thought they needed last year was shooters. If they had 1-2 more pure shooters, they would've been lethal because of how well they played defense. But they didn't really improve their shooting in the offseason.
I'm not sure how good Avery is as a coach, but like Auburn last year, I think he's finding out that plugging in 1-2 freshmen is pretty difficult and doesn't necessarily mean good things.
Our boy fade to Blake doing work:
http://southeasthoops.com/2017/12/26/sec-basketball-rpi-report-december-26-edition/
Our resume looks pretty damn great right now considering the SOS is lacking.
http://southeasthoops.com/2017/12/26/sec-basketball-rpi-report-december-26-edition/
Our resume looks pretty damn great right now considering the SOS is lacking.
LSU moved into the top 100 RPI with a win @Memphis. Other than Vandy/ OM not gonna be many chances at a bad loss. UF RPI is disappointing. Would be nice if UK can beat Louisville today.
UK running UL out the gym. Can pretty much put a lock on 7 getting in the dance with the chance for more depending on the SEC/B12 challenge in a month. Conference play gonna be fun.
So that surefire nba lottery pick, Robert Williams, doesn’t even start for A&M? Pretty sure I remember him dominating the Boogs last year
This commentator for the Bama game just said he was the AD at Shiloh Christian that hired Gus. Weird stuff
Some thoughts on opening day of the SEC season:
- Auburn looked solid, especially in the second half. Impressed with the willingness to share the ball and make teammates look better. Happy to see the continued tough, gritty play, especially from the guys coming off the bench. 3 or 4 of our best defenders might be coming off the bench every game.
- Bama looked good. Hung tough with aTm inside and outrebounded Aggie.
- aTm doesn’t look that great without their top two scorers. Williams and Davis are very good, but they don’t have much perimeter presence without Hogg, or it at least didn’t show tonight.
- Tennessee is physical, they get good shots, and they rebound and defend. I left to go to the game today. So I didn’t see the end of that game, but I’m not sure how UT lost. Thought they were the better team for all that I saw.
- Impressed that Arkansas came back. They’re a talented team. Their style of play is going to be an interesting matchup for us.
- Auburn looked solid, especially in the second half. Impressed with the willingness to share the ball and make teammates look better. Happy to see the continued tough, gritty play, especially from the guys coming off the bench. 3 or 4 of our best defenders might be coming off the bench every game.
- Bama looked good. Hung tough with aTm inside and outrebounded Aggie.
- aTm doesn’t look that great without their top two scorers. Williams and Davis are very good, but they don’t have much perimeter presence without Hogg, or it at least didn’t show tonight.
- Tennessee is physical, they get good shots, and they rebound and defend. I left to go to the game today. So I didn’t see the end of that game, but I’m not sure how UT lost. Thought they were the better team for all that I saw.
- Impressed that Arkansas came back. They’re a talented team. Their style of play is going to be an interesting matchup for us.
