Tide wins huge game over Florida to lock up an NCAA Tournament birth

Davidson's Gorilla Dunk Helps Tide Rise Above the Gators.

    Alabama came out of the gate playing well as they have for the past few games.  This is a change for the Tide who earlier in the year seemed to always have a slow start at the beginning of the game and the beginning of the second half.  However, since Chuck Davis got hurt, the team has seemed to play with a much greater intensity and has congealed as a team overall.  This has seemed to grow even more over the past few weeks.  They have had a few let downs recently, but now have also beaten the top three teams in the SEC (LSU, Tennessee, and Florida) on their way to an NCAA Tournament birth.

    This was a very important game for the Crimson Tide.  According to who you listen to, Alabama has been anywhere from in the NCAA Tournament three weeks ago to still on the bubble.  With the win a few weeks ago over LSU, I think that they pretty much wrapped it up.  However, loses to South Carolina and Arkansas over the last two weeks have left the Tide in a precarious situation.  The Tennessee victory last weekend seemed to put a stamp on Alabama's post season plans this season, especially with them winning wire to wire in a convincing way.  A win over top 10 ranked Florida would not only be a quality win for the Tide, but it would also put a vice grip on their trip to the NCAA tournament.

  Alabama came out of the gate running in this one and never seemed to tire out.  They were tied with Florida at 2 and 7, but after the tough jumper by Ronald Steele put the Tide up by two, Florida was never ever to make the game any closer.  It was a team effort throughout, with Steele leading the charge, but getting plenty of help with scoring from Jean Felix and freshman Alonzo Gee and on the boards from Jermareo Davidson and freshman Richard Hendrix.

    This good play led to only a handful of team fouls, which was nice for Tide fans who saw Arkansas come back after a few players got into early foul trouble.  This was even more surprising with the tandem of big men inside for the Gators.  They have, who many believe to be, one of the top big men in the SEC in Joakim Noah who was surprisingly silent in the first half.  He still grabbed some rebounds, but overall he was shut down.  The other big men for the Gators, including Al Horford aka "Tha Devil", were shut down even more.  The Gators overall played a horrible first half with a combined 20 percent three point shooting while taking fifteen shots and 26 percent shooting overall with a total of 35 shots.  They did a pretty good job on the defensive end, though, and even though they had only scored 24 points, they only went to the half down by eleven with the score of 35-24.  Now, the Crimson Tides first half play was a bit more balanced.

    Offensively, Alabama played a little bit better than normal.  The difference in the score at the end of the half was Alabama's three point shooting.  They were knocking them down with the quickness from behind the three point arc, shooting an amazing 5-7 for the half.  Overall, their shooting was a little down, but their 43 percent shooting was still over double what the Gators had done.

    A few times this year, we have seen what our talented freshmen can do.  This was one of those games.  Hendrix was like a magnet underneath the goal.  He was constantly bringing down rebounds against a very good sized Florida team.  Even more important were the numerous put backs that he had, the help keep the Tide ahead. 

    The other freshman that had a standout game was Alonzo Gee.  He came off the bench to give a spark to the team.  He played with allot of spirit and drive, which got the Tide moving on more than one occasion.  This is the play who could end up being something special in a few years.  He has a good shot, good ball handling skills, and great athleticism.  The last of these was his greatest asses in this game as he was the go to guy on break aways, homerun balls, and occasionally rebounds.

In the second half, the game changed completely.  All of a sudden, what had started as a tough, defensive minded game became a score fest.  Florida would make a run to get back within a few points and then Alabama would come back with a few shots of their own to extend their lead a bit.  Florida's big men started scoring more, but this is also when Hendrix really went to work on the boards. His strong play helped to keep the Tide on the top in what became a tug of war second half.  Luckily for Alabama, though, they always remained on top. 

One of the few things that the fans could be upset about was the poor officiating.  In my opinion, this has been a problem throughout the season and not just in Alabama or SEC games.  This seems to be an NCAA epidemic.  It appears that instead of actually officiating the games, referees have decided to pretty much let had fouls go unless the play drops to the ground.  Reversely, they have also called allot of phantom fouls.  When at first it seems like there is no way for the defender to make a play on a shot or a shooter and they go after it anyway, the referees seem to blow their whistle immediately instead of waiting to see if the defender can make a great play without fouling.  The fans were upset on numerous occasions with this poor officiating and made this well known.  They got so loud on occasion, that it was even mentioned by the commentators on CBS multiple times.

    Florida's second half trap tripped up the Tide at times, forcing a few turnovers and multiple time outs.  However, Alabama threw in enough gimmicks and looks to overcome the Gator press.  This was the key in the Crimson Tide maintaining the lead as the game wound down.  Unusually mediocre free throw shooting kept the Tide from putting the game away early, but when Davidson wrapped up the rebound with under twenty seconds left, the Tide knew that they had pulled off a huge upset and locked up their NCAA Tournament birth.

    Ronald Steele led the scoring for the Tide with 19 points, while Jean Felix chipped in with 14 points and Alonzo Gee had 11 points of his own.  Richard Hendrix was a rebound machine and managed to get in a double, double in the process.  He gobbled up 17 rebounds while scoring 11.  Davidson had a quiet double, double as well with 16 points and 10 boards.

    Alabama next plays Auburn at Coleman Coliseum on Wednesday night.  Then, their final game comes Saturday against Mississippi State.  Although Alabama should already be sitting pretty for the tournament, they cannot slack off against either of these teams in hopes of possibly moving up a seed with a strong final stretch of games.

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