Tide Hoops Completes Canada Trip With Another Win
9/3/2007 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
OTTAWA, CANADA ?? Mission accomplished. Mark Gottfried wanted his young University of Alabama basketball team to get the most out of its Labor Day weekend trip to Ottawa, Canada, and the Crimson Tide’s head coach said Alabama did just that.
“First of all, I think it was tremendous learning experience,” said Gottfried of the trip where Alabama played four games against three different Canadian collegiate teams and went 3-1 this past weekend. “One, culturally, I thought it was great for our guys, most of who are from the Deep South, to be in Canada and learn about the history of Canada. Ottawa is a beautiful city, so there was a cultural and an educational experience that was invaluable. Secondly, it was a great experience for our team. We got to learn a lot about our team and a lot about each other. We experimented with some things that we wanted to look at in our offense and defense. Our young guys now have a head start when we start practice and have an understanding of what we want to do. So all in all, it was a great trip. Very well-organized and very well-run and our players I think benefited from it.”
Alabama played its final exhibition game on Monday afternoon at the University of Ottawa, its second of two games it played against the GeeGees on the trip. Led by 26 points in just 21 minutes of play from Richard Hendrix, Alabama won 88-64. The Tide controlled the tip-off and Hendrix scored a layup on the first possession 22 seconds into the game and the Tide never looked back. Alabama led 39-25 at halftime.
Alabama played two games on Saturday, one on Sunday and one on Monday before returning to Tuscaloosa Monday night. It opened the trip by playing McGill University in Carleton University’s gym. Led by 30 points from freshman guard Senario Hillman and using a starting lineup of three sophomores (Mikhail Torrance, Justin Tubbs and Demetrius Jemison) and two freshmen (Hillman and Justin Knox) Alabama beat the Redmen 97-88. On Saturday night Alabama played its first of two games against the University of Ottawa on the Ottawa campus, and Alabama won that game104-80. The Tide used a mostly-veteran starting lineup for that game with Hendrix, Alonzo Gee, and Mykal Riley joining sophomore Yamene Coleman and freshman Rico Pickett in the starting five. Because the team was playing two games within a matter of hours, Riley, Hendrix and Gee had not dressed out or played in the McGill game earlier in the day. Three Tide players combined for 71 of Alabama’s points that night with Hendrix scoring 27 points, Riley scoring 24 and Hillman scoring 20 to give the freshman a 50-point day.
On Sunday night Alabama played at Carleton University, a team that has won Canada’s version of the NCAA’s national championship five years in a row, including this past season. Canada’s defending collegiate national champions packed the house, filling the Raven’s Nest with an estimated 3,500 fans in a gym that normally seats about 2,300. About 3,450 of the fans were students, 90% of those freshmen on campus for freshman orientation as the school told its season tickets holders they could not go to the game to fill the gym with its vocal student crowd. After swapping leads for most of the first half, Alabama trailed 36-34 at the half and could never overcome the Ravens. Carleton, a team with two Canadian national players in its lineup, won the game 83-72.
“I like the fact that we played four games and three of those four were road games per se, and we won two of the three of those,” said Gottfried. “I like the fact that we got challenged versus Carleton. Not winning the game, I think, was actually a positive. I think there’s a lot to learn. They are an excellent team and that’s going to be good for our team to have done that. But all of the teams that we played were very well-coached. They ran their offense well. They did it the whole game and it forced our young guys to play and learn how to play at the next level so I thought it was good.”
In Monday’s game, Hendrix led the win against Ottawa with 26 points, making 12 of 19 shots from the field. Torrance came off the bench to scored 13 points, and Both Gee and, off the bench, Tubbs scored 11 points. Gee led Alabama with 13 of its 44 rebounds. Four GeeGees scored in double digits, led by 12 from Josh Gibson-Bascombe. Donnie Gibson led with five of its 32 rebounds. Alabama shot 51% (37-72) from the field, 33.3% (5-15) from 3-point range, and 64.3% (9-14) at the free throw line. It held Ottawa to 31.7% shooting (19-60). Ottawa shot 30.4% (7-23) from 3-point range and made 73.1% (19-26) free throws.
The basketballs will rest now until the first official day of practice for the Crimson Tide which will be on Friday, October 14. Hendrix says this four-game trip to Canada as well as the preceded 10 days allowed for practice to prepare for the trip should give the team a jump come October 14.
“It was a good experience,” said Hendrix who scored 67 points and had 30 rebounds in his three games played in Canada. “It gave us the opportunity to kind of find ourselves and gives us a bar to work toward before the season starts. We saw a lot of people play who haven’t played before and it gave us a little more of an opportunity to gel. It was a good experience in Canada. We learned from the loss that we have to better ourselves to be more prepared when we play teams that resemble a team like Carleton. And on top of that, we were fortunate to get the chance to visit another country and learn a little something about Canada and its beauty and its culture.”
