Alabama
Coastal Carolina
Alabama Opens 2016-17 Men’s Basketball Season Friday Night vs. Coastal Carolina
11/10/2016 3:59:00 PM | Men's Basketball
Crimson Tide set to host Chanticleers at 8 p.m. CT on SECN+
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – The Alabama men's basketball team will play its first game of the 2016-17 campaign when it welcomes the Coastal Carolina Chanticleers to Coleman Coliseum on Friday, Nov. 11, at 8 p.m. CT.
Friday's game will be available online on SEC Network+ with Eli Gold and Wimp Sanderson on the call and Hannah Chalker handling sideline duties. Fans can listen to the radio broadcast on the Crimson Tide Sports Network as Chris Stewart (play-by-play) and Bryan Passink (analyst) are on the call. Live stats for the contest can accessed through RollTide.com, while in-game game updates and photos will be made available on Twitter on @AlabamaMBB.
PROMOTIONS
- Bama Salute Night – Honor military service men and women
- $6 Tickets for all general admission seats
- Military halftime performance
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
• Alabama returns two starters and eight letterwinners from last season's 18-15 team that reached the National Invitation Tournament. The Crimson Tide will have to find a way to replace three of its top four scorers and its top three assist leaders from the 2015-16 squad. Part of that void will be filled with the return of redshirt freshman Dazon Ingram, who started each of the first seven games of the year before suffering a season-ending foot injury. At the time of his injury, Ingram was leading the team in assists and rebounds from his point guard position. Head coach Avery Johnson also welcomes back senior forward Shannon Hale, who returns as the team's leading scorer at 10.8 points per game.
• Hale not only returns as the team's leading scorer, but he also tops all returnees in threes attempted (131) and free throw percentage (.747), while ranking second on the list in threes made (43) and minutes per game (24.6). Junior forward Riley Norris, who started 19 games a year ago, averaged 7.5 points and a team-leading 5.3 rebounds per contest as a sophomore. Norris also led Alabama in threes made (45) and total offensive rebounds (54), while ranking second in three-point field goal percentage (.375) and steals (26). Meanwhile, Ingram was averaging 7.7 points, 5.9 rebounds and 3.3 assists through his first seven games before suffering a season-ending injury.
• Alabama welcomes a pair of fifth-year graduate transfers in Corban Collins and Bola Olaniyan. Collins, who came to The Capstone from Morehead State, earned second team All-Ohio Valley Conference honors last season, while leading the team in scoring (11.0 ppg), three-point shooting (57-of-134/.425) and assist-to-turnover ratio (90 assists and 36 turnovers). Olaniyan transferred to Alabama from Southern Illinois where he earned a spot on the Missouri Valley Conference Most Improved team. He ranked second in MVC in rebounds per game (8.8) and led the league in offensive rebounds per game (3.0) while adding 7.8 points per contest.
• In addition to Collins and Olaniyan, Avery Johnson also welcomes to the lineup junior Nick King (Memphis) and sophomore Avery Johnson Jr. (Texas A&M), who each sat out the 2015-16 season due to NCAA transfer rules. Furthermore, forward/center Daniel Giddens transferred from Ohio State but will have to sit out the 2016-17 campaign.
• Coastal Carolina head coach Cliff Ellis will make his return to Coleman Coliseum on Friday night. Ellis, who coached at Auburn University for 10 years (1994-2004), owns an all-time coaching record of 713-447 as he enters his 38th season as a head coach at the Division I level. Now in his 10th season at Coastal Carolina, Ellis owns a record of 179-110.
• The Crimson Tide captured a 91-71 victory over Faulkner last Thursday in the team's lone exhibition game of the year. Junior guard Ar'Mond Davis led five Alabama players who scored in double figures with a team-high 17 points, while redshirt freshman Dazon Ingram added 15 points.
• Alabama will next be in action on Tuesday, Nov. 15, with a rare weekday mid-afternoon game when it hosts the Dayton Flyers 12:15 p.m. CT. The contest will be part of the ESPN Tip Off Marathon as the network provides 24 hours of college hoops coverage. Tuesday's game will be televised on ESPN2 and will also air live on the Crimson Tide Sports Network.
ALABAMA SET TO COMPETE IN 104TH SEASON OF BASKETBALL
• Alabama is set to compete in its 104th season of basketball in 2016-17.
• The Tide has an all-time record of 1,618-999-1 (.618), which includes a 765-588 (.565) record in SEC play.
• Alabama ranks second in the SEC in league victories and all-time winning percentage.
• UA has made 33 NCAA (19) or NIT (14) appearances and has won seven SEC regular-season titles and six SEC Tournament championships.
AVERY JOHNSON HAS SUCCESSFUL FIRST YEAR AT ALABAMA
• Avery Johnson closed out a successful first season as the head men's basketball coach at The University of Alabama. Picked to finish 13th out of 14 teams in the Southeastern Conference in a preseason coaches poll, the Crimson Tide closed the year with an 18-15 overall record and reached the 2016 National Invitation Tournament.
• The Tide accomplished a lot of milestones under Johnson's guidance during the 2015-16 season. Included in those was setting a new single-season average attendance record of 13,110 fans per game. Additionally, Alabama defeated four top-25 teams on the year – the most victories over ranked opponents since the 2001-02 season – after going a combined 0-18 over the previous four years in such contests.
• Other highlights included 18 victories last season which tied Johnson for the most wins by a first-year head coach in program history (matched Wimp Sanderson's 18 wins during his inaugural season in 1980-81). In addition, Johnson led the Tide to eight wins away from Coleman Coliseum which were the most since the 2011-12 campaign. Of those eight road wins, the biggest came when the Tide secured a 61-55 win at Florida, which not only snapped an 11-game losing streak to the Gators, but also was Alabama's first win in Gainesville since 1995.
• Johnson was introduced as Alabama's 20th head men's basketball coach on April 8, 2015. Johnson, who led the San Antonio Spurs to the 1999 NBA title and was named the 2006 NBA Coach of the Year, came to the Capstone after a successful coaching career in the NBA. Johnson boasted a 254-186 (.577) career coaching record after spending seven-plus seasons as a head coach in the NBA (Dallas Mavericks and Brooklyn Nets).
• During his time in Dallas, Johnson led the Mavericks to the postseason in each of his three-plus seasons as head coach. He led the Mavericks to a record of 194-70 (.735) and set the record for reaching the 50-win plateau (62 games) and the 150-win plateau (191 games) the fastest.
• In 16 NBA seasons as a player, he averaged 8.4 points, 5.5 assists, 1.7 rebounds and 25.3 minutes played in 1,054 career games with seven different teams. Known as "The Little General" for his on-court leadership and diminutive stature, Johnson helped guide the San Antonio Spurs to an NBA Championship in 1999.
• On March, 28 2003, as a member of the Mavericks, Johnson became the 75th player in league history to play 1,000 career games. At 5-11, he joined Calvin Murphy as the only other player under 6-feet in height to reach that milestone. He is still the Spurs' all-time leader in assists (4,474) and ranks 28th in NBA history in the same category. In recognition for his contributions to the Spurs organization, Johnson's No. 6 jersey was retired in December of 2007.
• The New Orleans native played his final two collegiate seasons at Southern University, leading the NCAA in assists in each of his two years, and was named the Southwestern Athletic Conference Player of the Year and the MVP of the conference tournament as both a junior and senior.
• He still owns several NCAA Division I records, including most assists in a single game (22 – shared with two other players), most 20-or-more assist games (4), the highest single season assist average (13.3) and the highest career assist average (12.0). As a senior in 1988, he averaged 11.4 points per game, making him the first men's Division I player ever to average double figures in points and assists in the same season.
• Johnson received a degree in psychology in 1988 from Southern University. He married his wife Cassandra in July of 1991 in New Orleans. They have two children, Christianne and Avery Jr., who transferred to Alabama from Texas A&M and sat out the 2015-16 season due to NCAA transfer rules.
TIDE RANKED NO. 22 IN ATTENDANCE, NO. 2 IN ATTENDANCE INCREASE
• The NCAA released its attendance numbers for the 2015-16 men's basketball season on June 8 and Alabama ranked second in the nation in "Largest Increase for Average Attendance from Previous Year," improving 2,934 fans per game from 10,176 in 2014-15 to 13,110 in 2015-16.
• Furthermore, Alabama's average attendance from the 2015-16 season ranked 22nd in the nation among Division I home attendance leaders, while the Southeastern Conference as a whole ranked second in the nation in average attendance at 11,144. That number was +325 in average from a year ago, which led all conferences.
• The Crimson Tide set a school record by averaging 13,110 fans per game during the first year under Johnson, topping the former mark of 12,484 fans per game during the 2011-12 campaign.
ABOUT THE ALABAMA CRIMSON TIDE IN 2015-16
• Alabama finished the season with an 18-15 overall record and finished 10th in the SEC with an 8-10 mark in league play. The Tide earned its 14th selection to the National Invitation Tournament, including the fourth appearance in the last six years. Alabama dropped the opening round game at Creighton, 72-54, to fall to 24-17 (.585) all-time in the event.
• Alabama reached the quarterfinals of the 2016 SEC Tournament, which marked the first time since 2013 it reached the event's final eight. The Tide defeated seventh-seeded Ole Miss, 81-73, on March 10. However, Alabama lost to No. 2 seed and 16th-ranked Kentucky, 85-59, on March 11 in the quarterfinals.
• Obasohan, who boasted a team-leading 14 games of 20 or more points and two 30-point games, led Alabama in scoring (17.6 ppg), steals (1.4) and minutes (32.3 mpg) through the Tide's 33 contests. The Antwerp, Belgium, native finished the year ranked fifth in the SEC in scoring average, sixth in field goal percentage (.471, which also led all guards in the conference), eighth in minutes per game and 10th in steals per game.
• Junior forward Shannon Hale and senior guard Arthur Edwards ranked second and third on the team in scoring average at 10.8 ppg and 9.5 ppg, respectively. Hale, who missed five games during the season due to medical afflictions, ranked third on the team in double-figure scoring games (15) and was second in games of 20 or more points (4) and free throw percentage (.747). Meanwhile, Edwards led the team and ranked sixth in the SEC in three-point field goal percentage at 39.4 percent (71-of-180) for the year. He also was second on the team with 17 double-digit games on the year.
• Sophomore Riley Norris stepped up his play during the SEC season. The Albertville, Ala., native pulled down a career-high 16 rebounds in the win at LSU on Feb. 17 and led the team in league play in rebounding (6.1 rpg), ranked second in three-point field goal percentage (.380), while ranking fourth in scoring (8.3 ppg) and second in minutes per game (31.6) during conference play.
• As a team, Alabama was outscored by the competition by 1.7 points per game (66.8-68.5). The Tide ranked among the top defensive teams in the SEC for the season. By year's end, Alabama ranked third in the league in scoring defense (67.9), blocked shots per game (5.3) and three-point field goal percentage defense (.329), and was sixth in field goal percentage defense (.409). Offensively, the Tide ranked fourth in three-pointers made per game (7.8).
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