Tide Hosts North Alabama Monday in Exhibition Basketball
11/4/2007 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
TUSCALOOSA - The University of Alabama basketball team officially opens the 2007-08 season in five days with its season opener on Friday night. And to ready it for the season, the Crimson Tide will host an exhibition game Monday night at 7 CT against the University of North Alabama.
"We're looking forward to playing against somebody else, other than ourselves in an actual game situation," said Alabama head coach Mark Gottfried who is in his 10th season as Alabama's head coach. "It's now that you want to see some of the things applied in the games that you've been working on in practice, specifically defensively and rebounding. And then after that comes running the floor. We've had some great competition for some playing time, which we'll continue to have great competition. So tomorrow is another opportunity for these guys to get out there and play."
Admission is $5 to the Coleman Coliseum game. Tickets can be purchased at the door, on Alabama's official website www.rolltide.com or by phone by calling 1-877-TIDETIX.
"These exhibition games, especially against good teams like North Alabama, are very helpful to us," said Tide junior guard Alonzo Gee who was voted to the Preseason All-Southeastern Conference Coaches' All-SEC 2nd team last week. "They help us learn things or see things that we still need to work on and they help us work on any weaknesses that we have as a team and individually. The point is to try and get better every day and playing a team like this will help us do that."
Probable starters for the Tide on Monday night will be guards Gee, Mykal Riley, and Rico Pickett and forwards Demetrius Jemison and Richard Hendrix, a preseason SEC Coaches and SEC Media 1st team All-SEC selection.
"We still have a ways to go but I think we're strong all over the floor," said Gee. "We've got good guard play and good post play. But it's early. We still have a lot we want to work on, a lot we want to improve on, things like playing togetherness and our defense."
North Alabama is one of two in-state teams Alabama will play this week. Its season opener is against Troy at 7 p.m. CT on Friday, November 9 in Coleman Coliseum.
"I think North Alabama is a great team to play. The NCAA, within the rules, dictates that you have to play a Division II or Division III team," said Gottfried, "and North Alabama is one of the top Division II teams in the country. And that's what you want in a game like this is to be challenged by a very good team. And Friday we are playing an in-state team in Troy that will be a very good team in the Sun Belt this year. I've got a tremendous amount of respect for (Troy head coach) Don Maestri and what he does."
