TUSCALOOSA ?? The No. 11 ranked University of Alabama basketball team opens its 2006-07 season on Friday, November 10, when it plays host to Jackson State University. Tip off in Coleman Coliseum is set for 7:30 p.m. CT.
“It’s time to play basketball. We’re ready,” said Mark Gottfried who begins his ninth season as the Crimson Tide’s head coach in an era that has found him leading Alabama to five consecutive NCAA tournament appearances since 2002.
The season opener finds Gottfried facing his former Murray State assistant, Tevester Anderson, who is now head coach at Jackson State, also making its official season debut.
“My former assistant, Tevester Anderson, is Jackson State’s head coach,” said Gottfried. “Great coach, great person. He did a great job as head coach at Murray State after I left. He’s going to bring a good team here Friday night. They’ve got a great guard in Trey Johnson who last year entered the NBA draft but withdrew his name. I think he had 25 points against us when we played last year. And in their two exhibition games this season, he’s had 28 and 32 so he’s a very capable perimeter player that we’ve got to get ready to defend.
“I think our guys are ready to play. You get to that point; everybody does every year, where you’ve banged on each other enough. We played Montevallo in an exhibition game last Saturday. I thought we learned a lot about ourselves. We’ve got to get better in a lot of areas and we get a chance to do that on Friday night. So it is time to play. The guys are ready.”
Alabama, led by two John R. Wooden preseason candidates point guard Ronald Steele and center Jermareo Davidson with their co-team-leading 14.3 points per game last season, finished 18-13 in 2006, advancing to the NCAA tournament second round where it fell 62-59 to eventual Final Four team UCLA. The Crimson Tide is 38-1 in home openers, hoping to keep a streak in tact that includes having won its last 12 straight home openers in Coleman Coliseum where Gottfried’s teams are 108-18 (.857%) since he arrived for the 1998-99 season.
Jackson State finished 15-17 last season, going 10-8 in the Southwestern Athletic Conference for a fourth place finish. Johnson paces his team and the SWAC. The junior from Jackson, Miss. averaged 23.5 points and 4.8 rebounds last season. Johnson is the SWAC’s preseason Player of the Year. Friday night’s game marks the second meeting between the two schools. Alabama hosted Jackson State on December 27, 2005 in Tuscaloosa, and, led by 23 points and 12 rebounds from Richard Hendrix and 22 points and 11 rebounds from Davidson, Alabama won 101-66.
Friday night’s game is the second of a double header of Tide hoops action in Coleman Coliseum. The Alabama women’s basketball team will open its season at 5 p.m. against Samford.
Fans are encouraged to bring canned food goods as well as non-perishables to the game as the Crimson Tide’s Student Athlete Advisory Committee will have collection bins as part of the University’s “Beat Auburn, Beat Hunger” food drive. The school that collects the most weight in food wins, though the real winners are the Tuscaloosa and Auburn communities as the food collected goes to help stock the West Alabama and East Alabama Food Banks.
