The Alabama men’s basketball team manhandled the Florida A&M Rattlers in its first game of the season, rolling to a 76-37 victory.
The Tide started out fast, scoring 10 points before allowing the Rattlers to get on the board. Despite some lulls, the Tide eventually wore down its opponent, jumping out to a 34-17 lead at halftime.
“I thought today our guys came out with the intensity that we needed to have at the beginning of the game,” head coach Anthony Grant said. “I thought we played in spurts in the first half, had some lulls. The thing that we talked about leading into the game was needing to put together a game of 40 minutes of our style of play.”
Junior forward JaMychal Green said he agreed with Grant.
“Like coach said, we started out the game great, turned it down,” Green said. “But the second half we got more aggressive.”
Indeed, the game was already out of reach for the Rattlers shortly after the second half began. The Tide was much more aggressive in the second half, eventually leaving room for one-handed alley-oops and off-the-backboard dunks. The Tide played well, with five players scoring in double digits. Green led the team in points with 14.
“That’s all this is about,” Green said. “Just go out and have fun and play together as a team. I think everybody did a great job, everybody that played. It was a good start for us.”
Senior guard Senario Hillman said, “I think we had fun. We came out aggressive, ready to play. Overall it was fun starting off the season.”
Alabama out-performed Florida A&M in most categories, including field goal percentage, three point percentage, free throw percentage and rebounds, and held the team’s leading scorer, sophomore forward Amin Stevens, to only eight points.
Despite the great start to the season, Grant said his team still isn’t where it needs to be.
“We’ve got a lot of room for improvement in a lot of areas,” Grant said. “You know, the thing I’m asking our guys to do is to bring consistent maximum effort on both ends of the floor.”
Grant said he’s still stressing fundamentals on a daily basis for his team.
“You know, I think those things that we stress on a daily basis, we’ve got to understand that’s what makes it fun,” Grant said. “When you play the way you’re supposed to play, you’ve got to do the things that equate to having that kind of success.
“We’re going to keep things in perspective, and understand that we’ve got a lot of growth that we still need to make as the season progresses. Overall, I think we learned a little bit today, and we can take that as we move forward into the season.”
