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Heard the team is arriving around 4pm. I hope we have a huge crowd to welcome them.

"He Is Risen"!!

College basketball season can be a wild ride, and that’s no different for this Alabama basketball team. They’ve hit a part of the schedule where, if you’re on this ride, that you just want to get off. 3 of the last 4 on the road (2 on the road against really good teams) and then a potential #1 seed at home. All while losing their most consistent 3 point shooter. They got through those 4 games at 1-3 and two of those losses weren’t competitive.

Last night they looked defeated when it got to half time. I honestly thought they played great defense for the first 15 minutes of the game, but it fell apart the final 5 minutes to go from up 1 to down 9. After that it was curtains. Alabama’s offense has also struggled the past 50 minutes of game time, which cannot happen for this specific team to win. They still scored a lot of points this game, but it was too late. Near impossible to beat a good team on the road when you are -20 from the FT line. Which ended up being the difference in the game. That’s the Doug Shows show though.

Overall, if you don’t believe in this team going far in the tournament then I’d agree with you. This team wasn’t expected to do a lot because of their lack of defense, and lo and behold they have a historically great offense to offset it. It’s been fun to watch that nonetheless. If I’m a Bama fan, I’d just go into tournament play hoping for the best but not expecting much. It’ll all depend on matchups.

Alabama desperately needs to beat Arkansas to get a double bye to get all the extra rest they can get. It would mean just 1 game in 9 days. They looked tired last night and now they have Rylan who might need some time to heal up.

a lot of rat poison this week.

Tennessee University goes down. Bye.

I've been contributing to this Rivals site for over 10 years now, and I can't tell you how many times I wished I could type that threat title and never thought I'd be able to... WOW.

I've covered some bad basketball teams in that 10 years and some elite ones, but never would I have guessed this would have been the team to put Alabama over the hump. I've taken a lot of flack defending this team and how Nate Oats has coached them, but this has been the best "team" he has had. Not the most talented, not the best defensive (by a long shot), but you can tell these guys genuinely love each other and love seeing each other succeed. Just speechless.

This game was an insanely fun game to watch. The first 10-12 minuets was all Clemson, jumping out to a 26-13 lead 12 minutes in. Then Alabama goes on a 22-4 run led by Jarin Stevenson scoring 12 at half. I mentioned before the game that Clemson's 3 point defense is not that great and got lucky in the tournament. Law of averages always win. Alabama started off slow, but hit 16 threes in the game to build up to a 9 point lead with 4 minutes left. Mark Sears and Nick Pringle were TERRIFIC in the 2nd half. Sears finished with 23 on 7/14 from 3 and Pringle finished with a 16/11 double double. The clutch FT's late in the game were huge to keep the lead out of reach. Jarin Stevenson finished with 19 on 5-8 from 3 and he was the catalyst that kept it close while other guys heated up.

Now, lets talk about the defense. The defense held Clemson to 33 points in the first half, which was HUGE since Alabama could not hit anything. You knew it would ramp up offensively in the second half, but the defense I thought was tremendous tonight. PJ Hall was held in check the whole second half and ended up fouling out in a crucial time of the game.

This for Bama fans of all ages. You can finally say you witnessed Alabama make the Final Four...

For Tennessee?

Final four T-shirts do we have to sell to build a new arena?

You know deep down he dislikes our trip to the Final four! But he is definitely a good sport about it! He really knows how to play the game. You know I really feel that he is happy that we made it and the ROOOOOOL TIDE this time was genuine! Hats off to you Charles!
ROLL TIDE ROLL!

Devoted this week's column solely to the basketball team. It's too special not to. Happy Easter, y'all.

TideIllustrated - Tony's takes: Nate Oats, Alabama continue to defy odds with Final Four run

For a former math teacher, Alabama’s NCAA Tournament run has got to be puzzling.

alabama.rivals.com

I noticed something last night. I thought that if you won the jump ball at the beginning of the game, the other team got the ball first start the second half? Am I wrong on the rule?

Hey man!
The Alabama Basketball team beat Clemson and advanced to the final four for the first time in program history!
And the lowly STL. Cardinals beat the Los Angeles Dodgers 6-5 yesterday!
Does it get any better than this? I think not!!
Happy Easter for Christ has Risen!
ROLL TIDE ROLL!

Posting for Jack! Soak it in, y'all. See you in Phoenix!

You can bitch and gripe all you want Coach Murphy will leave when he wants to! IMO he will NEVER get fired! He is BAMA softball!
The last three years I believe he has lost 6,8 ,10 conference games. This year after three series we are 6-9 and appear to be heading nowhere. Can we turn the season around? I hope so but I seriously doubt it.
That being said he has done as much for BAMA softball as any BAMA coaches not named Bryant, Saban or Patterson!
Look at the controversy over Eli being replaced! Coach Murphy is a HALL of FAME Coach and how can you just say good by?
I believe his arrogant and thinks he is bullet proof! And you know he just might be bullet proof! He could retire and walk away. But wether he like him now or not, there will never be another Patrick Murphy softball coach at Alabama!
We just might have to grit our teeth and hope things get turned around! If anyone can do it’s Coach Murphy!
What we need to do and should do is get behind our team and hope and pray they can turn this season around!
ROLL TIDE ROLL!

Here's some instant quotes from Nate Oats, Mark Sears, Jarin Stevenson, and Aaron Estrada following the 89-82 victory over the Clemson Tigers.

Oats: "I couldn't be more proud of a group of guys...there's just been no selfishness in this run."

Oats: "They made some runs on us in the second half but it was like we hit timely three after timely three."

Oats: "[Pringle's] last four games have been the best he's played since he's been here."

Stevenson: "I knew I could knock those shots down. Even though I airballed a couple threes, I just focused on the next shot and it helped me shoot better."

Sears: "Feeling a lot of emotions. Being from Alabama and doing it with this group of guys, it's amazing."

Sears: "We don't win this game without [Jarin Stevenson]"

Estrada: "Jarin grew up tonight."

Estrada: "This is evident, [Oats] is a great coach all around. He lost a lot last year, and for him to rebuild a group goes to show how hard working he is and how much of a competitor he is."

Sears: "[Oats] gives us all the confidence in the world when you're playing for a coach like that."

Sears: "Coming out of high school I wasn't highly recruited. My parents kept encouraging me to never give up and stay focused. Put God first you know. I just put the work in and trusted God and now I'm here."

Estrada: "I think that the mudita thing was probably the best thing that happened for this team."

Sears: "We were 6-5 and he heard the word mudita, and it changed our season around because everybody can see it our face cheering for others when they're succeeding even though we're not succeeding."

Estrada: "I believed [Oats] from the first time I spoke to him. The vision was evident."

Estrada: "They counted us out from the first game. My whole life, I've been under recruited and I think it added more fuel to everybody."

Sears: "Being from the state of Alabama, this means the world to me."

Oats: "We changed the gameplan up from the first time, because it wasn't great the first time...the coaching staff needed to do a better job, and we did a better job this time."

Oats: "It's unreal. Gave a lot of hope to high school coaches that's for sure."

Oats: "For us to win these two games to go to a Final Four without Wrightsell...shows a lot about the character of this team."

Oats: "Our staff was good. We looked at other teams who are similar to this. Syracuse did it twice, I called Jim Boeheim on that Sunday."

Oats: "We didn't finish at the rim like we were supposed to, I thought we blew some easy layups we should've made in the first half."

Oats: "When I came to Alabama, I knew it was a football school, there's no denying that. But also, it's a championship school."

Oats: "When I came to Alabama, I was loving the fact that I was going to be able to work in the same athletic department as arguably the best, maybe not even the best football coach, the best coach of any team sports in modern history in college."

Oats: "We've got some different options to get different shots, they don't always have to come flying up and down, taking quick threes. Quick threes are efficient if you have the right shooters, but there's other efficient shots too."

The ladies got a much needed win tonight. Bama bats finally woke up with 9 runs on 11 hits with 3 HR'S. Beaver got the win giving up 4 runs on 6 hits walking 2 and striking out 7,
Johnson got the save pitching 1 inning with no hits,1K & 1 BB. Game 3 tomorrow at 1:00.