I feel sorry for you if you live near the guy that is yelling at his television as if he is on the sidelines, begging for his team to run the pick-and-roll that worked two possessions ago or screaming for a play-action pass as if his life depended on it.
You may hate me for it, but I am that guy and I will make no apologies.
Our kind, we are 100 percent confident that we know what is best for our team. We are students of the games we love and watch obsessively and consider ourselves among the most educated of the viewers.
In short, we are the armchair head coaches.
When it comes to the Alabama men’s basketball season to date, there has been plenty of armchair coaching from my brethren and me. So, I want to take my talents to The Crimson White newsstands that occupy our campus. To fix the woeful offense that the Crimson Tide has presented up to now, here is what I think needs to happen.
Alabama needs to learn how to use freshman guard Rodney Cooper and freshman forward Nick Jacobs.
Cooper took southwest Alabama by storm last season, with 30-point outings not uncommon on his way to being named Parade All-American. Cooper did it by creating a three-point or mid-range jump shot for himself in the fast break offense or in an isolation situation.
So, when Cooper seals his defender at the top of the key and sticks his hand out for the ball, give it to him. Let him take the ball, spin off of his man, make the 18-foot jump shot and run back to play defense.
Jacobs was brought to Alabama to be an offensive specialist in the post. An offensive specialist in an Anthony Grant program sounds downright silly, I know. But it’s true.
I’ve seen that when Jacobs gets the position he wants in the post, he does not call for the ball in a certain spot, whether a bounce pass or lob, but simply spreads his arms and waits for the ball.
For some reason, the guards do not seem to like that posture and do not feed him the ball as much as they probably should. It is a little atypical, I will admit, but Jacobs has one of the best turnaround hook shots in the Southeastern Conference. Use it.
As a final note, I want to change the direction of the offense slightly. I don’t want to run the offense through freshman guard Trevor Lacey; I want to run the offense to Lacey. Against Tennessee, Lacey used the dribble-drive from all different angles to get himself either a lay-up opportunity or a trip to the charity stripe.
The timing for these moves is perfect. Now that junior guard Tony Mitchell will not play for the rest of the season, that production needs to be replaced and it is hard to rely on one young player alone to produce that by himself. So, let’s use three.
That being said, I want to hear what you think. Go to thecrimsonwhite.com and comment on this story or use the email address and Twitter handle provided at the top of this column. Let’s open the debate.
