Coach Mark Gottfried Previews the 2004-05 Season

With the 2004-05 men's basketball season just around the corner, Crimson Tide head coach Mark Gottfried gives some thoughts about his team and the upcoming season.

At first glance, it would appear that Alabama is in a great position heading into the season with four starters returning from a 2004 NCAA Elite 8 team. But look a little deeper, and that is not the reality, is it?

"We've got four players with a lot of experience, and the rest of the team has very little experience. We have nine who have not played. So it's deceiving because the four who played played a lot. But outside of those four, we don't have any experience really to talk about. So that's my biggest concern. And, also, we're losing a senior point guard and a backup senior point guard and replacing them with a freshman point guard and a freshman backup point guard, so that's going to be the biggest hurdle for us to climb."

Alabama's 2004 season turned a lot of heads with its finish. Did it turn yours, or did you believe all along it was possible to go that deeply into the NCAA tournament?

"You're always trying to get your team to believe that you can do great things. You have to remember that what's a little bit deceiving about our team is that if (Antoine) Pettway doesn't make the shot against SIU (in the NCAA 1st round), then we would have finished 17-13 and nobody would have been talking about us being good again this season. The three games in the NCAA tournament changed the perception of how people view our program right now this summer, and that's' a good thing. But we also have to remember that we were real close to being 17-13 and having just another trip to the tournament."

What impressed you most about the 2004 team, and what part do you think will carry over into the upcoming season?

"There was a great desire to win. There was a confidence level all year long. And really, outside of that five-game stretch when we were pretty banged up, they played with that confidence all year long. So I think we have some confident players who believe they can do some great things, and that's
always good to have."

You lost one starter to graduation, Antoine Pettway. Talk about the impact that loss makes and about the talent Alabama returns.

"Losing Antoine is big, a lot bigger than probably we all anticipated it was going to be before last year. I think he willed our team to a lot of wins. I also think you've got to remember that it was a great luxury to have a senior to put in the game whenever Antoine wasn't in the game (referring to Demetrius Smith). So that's going to be our biggest question mark, how quickly we get some consistent play out of that position. We'll miss Antoine as much as we've missed anyone in our program since I've been here."

"Of the four or five guys that played who return, I think Evan Brock has done a good job this summer. He's got to keep improving. He's got a ways to go. Earnest Shelton has had a great summer. And I think that Chuck Davis and Jermareo Davidson, along with Evan and Earnest have all had good summers. Kennedy Winston, having had another surgery this summer on his knee, he's been sidelined as far as working out. As of mid-July, he hadn't done anything in almost two months. He's struggled because of the injury. So we've got some pieces there coming back, there just aren't very many of them."

Who do you see as potential All-SEC players from this team?

"I think that Earnest Shelton, as a senior, is really going to step up and have a great year. I anticipate that. And any one of those four guys that played last year, Jermareo, Chuck, and Kennedy, along with Earnest, I think any of those guys can have breakout years. Whether it's good enough to be All-America type years, I don't know, but they all can certainly do a lot of things to help our team."

Last season Alabama played one of the toughest regular seasons in the country and it got even tougher in the NCAA tournament with facing the No. 1 ranked team and the defending national champions along with the eventual champions. How does this season's schedule compare?

"I think it's going to be close to the same. We're anticipating getting some great games in Alaska. We're travelling on the road to Wisconsin and to Charlotte, and both will be very difficult games. And our home schedule has Hall of Fame coach John Chaney (Temple) coming in here. What we've tried to do is play teams that we feel like have a chance to be conference champions. That's what helped us last year. We have East Tennessee State coming in. Murray Bartow does a great job. They've got everybody back from a great tournament team from last year. There's a long list of teams like that, so we'll have our hands full again pretty much every night."

You enter the season with your coaching staff intact.

"I think it's good to have some continuity there. I think Orlando Early and Philip Pearson do a tremendous job working with our perimeter players. I think Tom Asbury is as good of a post developer as there is in the country. I think he's fabulous. I think the play and watching the development of Chuck Davis and Jermareo Davidson grow as the season went on is a real credit to Tom Asbury. I think he did a terrific job. I like our staff. I think it's as good a staff as I've had here at Alabama."

Talk about the impact of the newcomers and what you expect from them. Do you anticipate redshirting anyone?

"We don't know that yet. We'll have to wait and see. You have to remember that we redshirted four guys last year, Justin Jonus, Akini Adkins, Shawn Taylor and LaKory Daniels. So that's seven freshmen counting the new freshmen coming in, and we also have a newcomer in Jean Felix (JUCO transfer). I think all those guys can help. I think Ron Steele and Glenn Miles and Albert Weber at the guard line can help a lot. And Felix, I think is going to be an impact guy, too. We've just got to find a place for him to play with Earnest and Kennedy out there."

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