Tide Hoops Ready to Hit the Floor Saturday
10/11/2002 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
TUSCALOOSA - The University of Alabama men's basketball team will officially begin preparations to defend its 2002 Southeastern Conference Championship Saturday. Alabama will hit the floor of Coleman Coliseum for the opening day of practice.
"I think we're like everybody, we're excited to start basketball practice. It's that time of year," said the 2002 SEC Coach of the Year Mark Gottfried who begins his fifth season as the head coach at his Alma Mater. "The players are ready to go. I think they've done a good job through the summer and the spring and fall. I think they have been a pretty determined group of people all summer long in the off-season. I think they're satisfied with winning the league but not satisfied with how we want to finish. So there's a lot of motivation for them and for our program. We're excited to get started."
Alabama returns four of its five starters from its 2002 NCAA tournament team, a team that finished No. 8 in the final Associated Press poll and No. 14 in the ESPN/USA Today rankings. Among those returnees is national player of the year candidate, 6-9 senior power forward Erwin Dudley. Dudley, who played at around 255 pounds last season, is at 260 going into the start of his senior year.
"The expectations have gone up a lot more since last season. I guess that's a driving force for us as a team, to want to go out there and do better, practice harder," said Dudley who won both the AP and the SEC Coaches SEC Player of the Year award in 2002. "We didn't really change anything up as far as our preparation this summer. We just want to go out and prove ourselves in case there's anybody out there who maybe thought we were a fluke or something. We want to prove that we're just as good as we were last year and have worked to make ourselves even better."
Alabama also returns senior starters 6-9, 230 pound center/forward Kenny Walker (9.2 ppg/5.5 rpg) and 6-2, 190 pound guard Terrance Meade (8.4 ppg/3.1 rpg). Together with Dudley (15.2 ppg/8.9 rpg), the trio has been starters since the first games of their freshman season.
"Last year we went through practice with a purpose, and that purpose was to make it to the NCAA (tournament)," said Walker who led the league in free throw shooting last season. "I think our purpose this year is even greater. We know what we need to do this year. We've got the same people returning for the most part and the people who are coming in are really going to add to this team a great deal. Our purpose this year is to hopefully make the Final Four. We expect nothing less than that. You have to approach the season that way."
Alabama also returns 6-1, 185 pound point guard Mo Williams (10.4 ppg/3.9 rpg) who was a starter last season as a true freshman and was named SEC Freshman of the Year by both the AP and SEC Coaches. Alabama returns veteran guards Earnest Shelton (6.1 ppg), Demetrius Smith and Antoine Pettway (6.5 ppg) and forward Reggie Rambo. Newcomers to the Crimson Tide this season include two players who were redshirts last season, 6-foot-6 guard/forward Lucky Williams who prepped at Birmingham's Central Park Christian and guard Jason Reese who transferred from UAB. Emmett Thomas, a 6-4, 205 pound forward is a JUCO transfer from Bevill State who played his freshman season at the University of South Alabama. The freshman class includes 6-9, 190 pound forward Evan Brock of Roswell, Georgia, 6-8, 230 pound forward Chuck Davis of Selma, and 6-foot-7, 200 pound forward Kennedy Winston of Mobile.
Alabama opens its season on November 14 in Madison Square Garden against Oklahoma. Alabama's home season tickets are on sale now. Visit www.rolltide.com to order or call (205) 348-BAMA.
