I am a Montevallo alum and it is sooo weird when they play against Alabama. Since UM doesn’t have a football team I have never felt wrong in rooting for Alabama, but every other year when we play basketball I feel like I am rooting for one of my children to beat up the other. Very strange feeling.

Going to be exciting watching us play this year with our up-tempo style and 40-minute full-court trapping defense. I thought the defense looked good last night and for the most part did what it was designed to do: it forced Montevallo into several turnovers and bad decisions, we picked up several steals deep in their end of the court, and we scored 24 points off turnovers. On the offensive end we were very, very sloppy (24 turnovers, mostly unforced) but hopefully this was just a sign of pre-season rust and nerves and not a sign of things to come.

One note to the original poster—Anthony Brock is no longer our best 3-point shooter. That would be Charvez Davis. I’m not saying that just because he went 3-for-5 from beyond the arc last night, either. Last year playing JuCo ball Davis was third in the nation in made 3-pointers per game, averaging 3.75 made 3s each game (that’s 11 points each game from behind the arc). Not only that, but he did so while shooting at a very efficient rate (41%). Brock is a great shooter as well, but but Davis will emerge as our top 3-point threat very early if he hasn’t already.

As frustrating as it was watching the Gottfried-coached teams, the way he got his kids to go to class and graduate on time made me proud. Even up here in ACC country, where the fans brag about the high-quality schools, there are plenty of idiots and thugs on all of the teams. Mark kept his kids straight, they went to class, and they were generally good folks. I hope Coach Grant can keep it going (with better game management, of course).