Tide Opens 2007-08 Basketball Season Friday Night
11/8/2007 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
TUSCALOOSA ?? The 2007-08 season officially tips off for the University of Alabama basketball team Friday night at 7 CT when the Crimson Tide plays host to Troy.
Tickets are available at the door or by purchase on Alabama's website, www.rolltide.com or by calling 1-877-TIDETIX.
There is no live television for the game but fans can follow the action by listening to the Crimson Tide Sports Network with Chris Stewart calling the play-by-play and former Tide hoops player Bryan Passink debuting as the radio broadcast team's analyst. The broadcast will be carried on Sirius channel 158. A list of CTSN radio affiliates can be found on Alabama's website, www.rolltide.com.
The game will herald in the 10th season of the Mark Gottfried coaching era. Gottfried's next win will be his 250th career win in his nine previous seasons at Alabama and three seasons at Murray State. He brings a 249-132 career record into the game, with 181 of those wins coming at Alabama. At home in Coleman Coliseum Gottfried's Alabama teams are 119-19.
This is only the second time Alabama and Troy have played one another in men's basketball. The first time was when Gottfried's 2001 Alabama team opened the season against the Trojans. Led by 20 points and eight rebounds from Rod Grizzard, Alabama won that game in Coleman Coliseum 82-64.
The game pits two long-time friends on opposing benches. Troy head coach Don Maestri was an assistant coach on Wimp Sanderson's Alabama basketball staff in 1980-81 and 1981-82. Among the high school players Maestri recruited to come play at Alabama was Mark Gottfried, though Maestri would leave to become Troy's head coach before Gottfried arrived as a Tide player . And first year Tide assistant coach Kobie Baker was an assistant to Maestri at Troy for the 2001-02 season, helping coach the Trojans to the Atlantic Sun regular season championship. (Troy moved to the Sun Belt Conference in 2004).
"Like every team, we're anxious to play. I think our guys are," said Gottfried of the opener that comes five days after his team defeated North Alabama 99-71 in exhibition play. "We've got a lot of respect for Troy. They will be a very good team this year. We scheduled teams like Troy because we felt like Troy has a chance to win their league. I've known Don Maestri a long, long time. In fact he recruited me when I was in high school. He worked for Coach Sanderson. He left by the time I got here, but I've known him for a long, long time. He's a very, very good friend.
"We've got our hands full. I think we'll have our hands full with everybody we play, so we better get ourselves ready to go. We've had a couple of good days of work since the North Alabama game, so we'll go from there."
Like teams all across the country, Gottfried and his Tide team are eager to start the season. Alabama has had a non-traditional start to its year, practicing for 10 days in August to lead to a four-game trip to Ottawa, Canada on Labor Day weekend where it went 3-1, falling only to Canada's five-time defending national collegiate champions, Carleton University.
"Anytime you have games, it's fun," said junior power forward Richard Hendrix, a 2008 Wooden Award candidate and returning All-Southeastern Conference player. "We're looking forward to getting out there and playing, getting some games that count and starting the season off the right way, hopefully.
"I hope those extra games we played this summer will have us ahead, but you never really can tell," said Hendrix who led the SEC in field goal percentage shooting at .604% last season. "Even though we've been to Canada and had an exhibition game, you never can tell. It's a totally different animal when the lights come on and the games really count and mean something. So we're just going to have to come out and hope for the best."
Alabama's probable starting lineup for the Troy game will find Hendrix and 6-7 sophomore Demetrius Jemison at forwards and 6-6 senior Mykal Riley and 6-6 junior Alonzo Gee at guards and, playing the point, 6-3 true freshman Rico Pickett.
If Pickett does start at the point guard position on Friday night, he will become the fourth true freshman to start at point guard in his first collegiate game and the season opener in Alabama basketball history. Ennis Whatley was the first to do it in 1982. Mo Williams, now starring in the NBA with the Milwaukee Bucks, did it his freshman season at Alabama in 2002. And Ronald Steele, who Pickett is stepping in for while Steele redshirts this season to recover from knee surgery, started at point guard in Alabama's season opener his freshman year in 2005.
Starting true freshmen has been a Gottfried trademark given the talent he has recruited into his program over the years which has allowed him that luxury. He produced seven Freshman All-SEC players between 2001 and 2006, and most of those freshmen were starters.
"We've started a freshman here just about every year I've been here," said Gottfried when asked at his weekly press conference if he was "nervous" about starting a true freshman in Pickett at the point guard in the opener. "I don't know the stats but it's been a lot. We've had a number of freshman make the All-SEC Freshman team mostly because they're starting for us, so we've been in that situation before.
"I think Rico has done a great job. He's picked things up real quick, the offense, the defense. Where he's really good is he can assess things. He's got that ability as a point guard to read situations, figure out, pay attention to match-ups. Somebody comes in the game, he's thinking, ??Who should be guarding who? I'm coming down the floor; Richard hasn't touched the ball for a little while,' and he's thinking in his mind, ??What do we need to run offensively to give Richard the ball?' He's constantly assessing things. I like that about him. He's got a good mind for a point guard."
For Pickett, he says it doesn't matter whether he starts or not. He's just ready to play though he knows come Friday night when he does step on to the court and into the game that first time, he will be making a giant leap from his high school playing days where he starred as Decatur's all-time scoring leader and the 5A state Player of the Year.
"I'm really excited. I'm very excited. I can't wait to get it started and just see what happens, " said Pickett, a 2007 Decatur High graduate. "There's going to be a big difference than what it was like in high school. I'll be a little bit more nervous than I was in high school because I was very comfortable in high school. I was used to it, and this will be my first game so I'm pretty sure I'll have some butterflies, but I think I'll do alright.
"Everybody is excited to start the season. Everybody's pumped up," said Pickett. "We're all ready to get it started, ready to play."
Following Friday night's game Alabama hits the road to play at Mercer on Tuesday, November 13 at 6:30 p.m. CT.
