The Daily Bama Blog

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Every time you think you’ve seen Alabama do it all …

Tonight, the Crimson Tide cracked the code to winning in Fayetteville, 79-68, with an offensive outburst.Freshman Rodney Cooper came off the bench to score 17 while Andrew Steele had a career-high 15 points to pace the Tide (18-9).

It was Alabama’s first win at Arkansas in seven seasons. It was also the first 70-plus point game since suspensions of Tony Mitchell and JaMychal Green rocked the team a few weeks ago.

With it came an edge in the SEC standings. Alabama is tied with LSU and Tennessee for fourth in the league with identical 7-6 league records.

With three games left, the Tide faces nothing but teams with worse conference records. Mississippi State (6-7) comes to Tuscaloosa on Saturday followed by Auburn (4-9) and a road trip to Ole Miss (5-8).

The top four seeds get a bye in the SEC tournament. The road win can’t hurt Alabama’s NCAA at-large hopes either. Remember Arkansas had a 17-game home winning streak before Florida earned a 30-point win Saturday.

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They’re reaching the stretch run and it’s anyone’s race. Alabama’s 6 p.m. visit with Arkansas will again be huge for the Tide’s postseason hopes. Here are a few details to keep in mind:

Alabama lineup: G Trevor Lacey, 6-3, Fr., 7.0 ppg., 3.2 rpg.; C Moussa Gueye, 7-0, So., 2.3 ppg., 2.1 rpg.; G Levi Randolph, 6-5, Fr., 5.9 ppg., 4.0 rpg.; G Trevor Releford, 6-0, So., 12.2 ppg., 2.0 assists; G Andrew Steele, 6-4, Jr., 6.6 ppg., 5.0 rpg.

Arkansas lineup: G Mardracus Wade, 6-2 So., 10.4 ppg., 2.0 rpg.; F Devonta Abron, 6-8, Fr., 5.9 ppg., 4.3 rpg.; G BJ Young, 6-3, Fr., 15.1 ppg., 3.1 rpg.; F Marvell Waithe, 6-9, Sr., 5.5 ppg., 3.4 rpg.; G Julysses Nobles, 6-1, Jr., 8.9 ppg., 3.3 assists.

Noteworthy: Alabama is 2-4 in SEC road games while Arkansas saw its 17-game home winning streak end Saturday in a 30-point loss to Florida. … The Tide hasn’t scored 70 points since beating the Razorbacks 72-66 in Tuscaloosa on Jan. 28. Alabama’s averaged 61.8 points in the five games since. … Alabama’s field-goal defense ranks eighth nationally by allowing 38.1 percent shooting on average. … Hog freshman BJ Young scored a career-high 31 in the loss to Florida. … Arkansas leads the league and ranks 11th nationally by averaging 8.8 steals per game. … Alabama has not won in Fayetteville since 2005 and neither team was won a road game in the series since 2007. … A Tide win would be coach Anthony Grant’s 60th at Alabama.

Please note lineups are projections based on the previous game.

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They’re all huge from here on out. The final four regular season games for the Alabama basketball team starts tonight in Fayetteville. Read about it here:

TUSCALOOSA — They’ll wear crimson and the jersey will say Alabama, but the team entering Bud Walton Arena this evening won’t look a lot like the one Arkansas saw a few weeks ago.

The Razorbacks couldn’t keep pace with the full-strength Tide in a 72-66 loss Jan. 28 in Tuscaloosa. But Alabama has since has endured a February filled with suspensions.

Still, it won’t matter much that Tony Mitchell has been suspended for the season and JaMychal Green won’t make the trip with the Tide — at least not for Razorback coach Mike Anderson. He said preparations remain the same for the 6 p.m. rematch in Fayetteville.

Game film of big games from freshmen Trevor Lacey, Rodney Cooper and Nick Jacobs stands out, along with recent performances by 7-footers Carl Engstrom and Moussa Gueye.

“Now the young guys have chance to really show a lot of their ability,” Anderson said. “And they’ve done well. Of course when you have Trevor (Releford) running the show, you have a chance. And a guy like (Andrew) Steele, he’s an iron man. He just does the little things. They’ve held the ship together.”

With four games left before the SEC tournament, neither team can afford a slip-up.

Click here for the full story.

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Alabama’s 7-foot center Moussa Gueye didn’t take the easy path to the starting lineup. He missed all of last season with an injury before tearing his ACL in August. Gueye sat down with us the other day to talk about the “miracle” comeback in such a short time. Read about it here:

The excitement was killing Moussa Gueye this August. The Senegal native had sat out an entire junior season with a stress fracture in his leg, and Chris Hines’ graduation left a definite role for him at Alabama.

AP photo

Then he stepped on a teammates’ foot in an August practice. He immediately knew something was wrong.

Doctors said it was a torn knee ligament and told him six months was the minimum recovery time. Eight months was more likely.

“My world crashed down,” Gueye said. “I was amped up to play at 100 percent and excited about the team we had.”

So he worked and worked to strengthen the knee. Gueye and his extended crutches made the back and forth from the clinic in the football complex across the street to Coleman Coliseum daily. Watching teammates in practice fueled his recovery.

And four months later, he was back on the floor. Was he surprised? Hardly.

He smiled while talking about his first practice back.

“I didn’t even worry if I touched the ball,” Gueye said. “It was just great to have that feeling of running up and down again.”

Click here to read full story about Gueye and fellow 7-footer Carl Engstrom.

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Two days before a huge road game at Arkansas, Alabama coach Anthony Grant sat down with reporters. You can only guess what the main topic was.

JaMychal Green will not be playing Thursday at Arkansas.

“We’ll see how the week goes and we’ll make some decisions after Thursday,” Grant said about Green’s availability moving forward.

Junior guard Andrew Steele said it’s nice to have Green back around the team.

“It gives us a down-low post presence,” Steele said. “And like I’ve said, I feel like he’s one of the best players, not only in the SEC, but in the country. I only see positives coming out of it.”

Grant was also asked about Tony Mitchell and if he’d return for his senior season.

“I don’t know,” Grant said.

Steele called that news “disappointing.”

“Obviously he could help our team with the talents that he has,” Steele said. “But we understand it was coaches’ decision to make and we have to stand behind it.”

Yesterday, the program announced Mitchell’s suspension will last the rest of the season while Green will resume practicing this week.

The other player who didn’t play in Saturday’s win against Tennessee was also discussed today. Grant said Nick Jacobs practiced yesterday and should be good to go after an infection left him with a fever Saturday.

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The photo that started it all. (Hal Yeager/Birmingham News via AP).

Update: Through his Twitter feed, Blankenship says he will also appear on the Jimmy Fallon show tonight.

—-

Original post: We all get our 15 minutes, I guess. Alabama freshman Jack Blankenship used about 3.5 this morning when he appeared on the Today show in New York.

Click here if you need the back story, but if you’re even vaguely familiar with the past week of Alabama athletics, it won’t be necessary.

We all take ourselves too seriously sometimes. Blankenship certainly does not. That’s his contribution to society.

That makes his 15 minutes worthwhile.

Click here for the video from the Today show appearance he made this morning.

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So the drama is over, right? Anthony Grant made the announcement you’ve been waiting for regarding the suspensions of Tony Mitchell and JaMychal Green. Here’s today’s print story:

TUSCALOOSA — After two weeks of uncertainty, a degree of clarity came for the Alabama basketball team Monday afternoon.

With it came a resolution to the suspension saga that’s gripped the program in the crucial final weeks of the season and left its two leading scorers in limbo. The verdict: Tony Mitchell is done for the year, and JaMychal Green can resume practicing.

The separate suspensions, originally termed “indefinite,” have so far cost Mitchell four games and Green three. It was the third suspension in three seasons for Green and the first for Mitchell. The exact nature of the rules violations could not be confirmed.

A mid-afternoon news release did not address Green’s availability for the Tide’s Thursday trip to Arkansas, though coach Anthony Grant spoke on the issue a few hours earlier.

Asked during the weekly teleconference about the status of the troubled players, Grant was brief.

“I don’t anticipate them being available for Thursday,” he said at 11 a.m.

Grant said he was also in the process of setting up meetings with Green and Mitchell that he originally discussed last Friday. The official announcement came just after 3 p.m. Grant will not be available for further comment until this afternoon.

Alabama (17-9, 6-6 SEC) split the four games since Mitchell’s suspension was announced Feb. 6. The high-flying junior finishes the season with a 13.1-point scoring average.

His productivity, however, sagged in recent weeks. He averaged 8.3 points in his last six games, including his only scoreless performance in three seasons.

Click here to read the whole story.

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This is becoming a Monday tradition. Following an eventful week of Alabama basketball, we update its standing in the RPI.

This time, nothing changed. The Crimson Tide held firm at No. 37, according to the numbers released this morning on the official NCAA website. A loss to Florida and the beating of Tennessee cancelled each other out.

To date, Alabama’s win over Wichita State remains its most impressive. The Shockers move up to No. 15 this week.

The 2-point loss to No. 13 Georgetown also helps the Tide’s strength of schedule. Kentucky helps too. The Wildcats are No. 4, followed by Florida (No. 17) and Vanderbilt (No. 24).

And now, the rankings of Alabama’s remaining regular-season opponents:

87. Arkansas
59. Mississippi State
125. Auburn
62. Ole Miss

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Alabama coach Anthony Grant just addressed the question on everyone’s mind entering a huge week for the team. Will JaMychal Green and Tony Mitchell return for Thursday’s trip to Fayetteville?

“I don’t anticipate them being available for Thursday,” Grant said on the SEC media teleconference.

On Friday, Grant said he’d be sitting down with the two this week. Asked about where that meeting stands, Grant said he was  “in the process of getting that done.”

Mitchell has missed four games and Green the last three. The term was called “indefinite” from the beginning, but Grant said he likes how his team is adapting to the situation.

“I think our guys have moved on and just try to get better in each practice and try to prepare the best we can for the opponent in front of us,” Grant said.

Mississippi State coach Rick Stansbury said he isn’t thinking too much about his Saturday trip to Tuscaloosa with Kentucky coming to town tomorrow. But he wasn’t discounting the talent who’ve stepped into new roles.

“Who ever they have or don’t have, they are a very good basketball team,” Stansbury said.

Stansbury even said he thinks Alabama could be better now because others have learned and developed so much without Green and Mitchell in the lineup.

More later. Check back for that

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This is the story of Alabama’s big basketball Saturday that included a 12-point win over Tennessee. Read it here:

TUSCALOOSA — Still 10 seconds from making it official, Andrew Steele and Anthony Grant shared a double-barreled high five. They were almost giggling.

A trying week of suspensions, injuries and consecutive losses included another plot twist for the Alabama basketball program Saturday afternoon. The physically overwhelming 62-50 win ended Tennessee’s four-game winning streak while energizing the shorthanded Crimson Tide.

Playing without three starters, Alabama (17-9, 6-6 SEC) demoralized the Vols with an aggressive backcourt and a retooled frontline. The Tide had a season-high 15 steals among the 17 Tennessee turnovers with Andrew Steele and Trevor Lacey combining for 11.

“We had a lot of fun out there and it was contagious when you see people playing so hard out there,” said a smiling Steele, who added a career-best seven assists and 10 points. “It kinda rubs off on everybody else.”

Lacey also came a point shy of a career high with 18 on 9 of 12 free-throw shooting. He got there by penetrating instead of settling for jumpers like he’d recently done.

Still, it was his 3-pointer nine minutes into the game that erased Tennessee’s final lead in what became a rout. Tide runs of 10-0 and 6-0 put the hosts up 10 after trailing by as many as five.

Tennessee (14-13, 6-6) tied the game early in the second half before Alabama’s 19-2 outburst pumped life into the crowd of 12,988. The lead never dipped below eight after that. Alabama’s rabid intensity didn’t surprise Vol Jeronne Maymon,

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