The Crimson Tide moved to 2-0 on the season last night with a comfortable win over the Troy Trojans. Troy closed the game with an 11-2 run over the final 3:00, so the game wasn't even as close as the score indicates.
Like its football counterparts, the University of Alabama men’s basketball team showed the ability to put together a dominating half in Monday night’s 79-60 win over Troy at Coleman Coliseum.
Like most coaches, Anthony Grant wants to stretch that over two halves.
The Crimson Tide opened up a 21-point lead in the first 17 minutes, then cruised to victory, displaying good defense and more offensive punch — at times — than it had shown in two exhibitions and one regular-season game.
Crimson Tide Basketball dominates Troy | Cecil Hurt, Tuscaloosa News
The Tide led 47-32 at halftime and then coasted. It sank 32 of 64 shots from the field (50 percent) while holding Troy (1-1) to 39 percent shooting (23 of 59). Alabama had 19 assists to nine turnovers and forced 17 turnovers. It outscored the Trojans 48-24 in the paint and 22-10 in points off turnovers.
Tide's talent too much for Trojans | Don Kausler Jr., Birmingham News
Troy, the defending Sun Belt conference champions, came into the game with a strategy of using a zone defense against Alabama in an effort to slow the game down and force the Tide to dissect their defense from the outside in. The Tide was surprisingly effective in their dissection in the first half, piling on a whopping 47 points in the half, enough to ensure that the lead would never be seriously threatened throughout the game. In a later piece I'll examine how individuals have performed in our two opening games, but as I team I was really impressed and pleasantly surprised at how effective our offense was last night.
Defensively our team is a real joy to watch. I've said already in this preseason article that we have our fair share of limitations when it comes to offense and rebounding, but our defense is going to harass people all year long. We pressed virtually the entire 40 minutes against Troy without too many breakdowns, and by the middle of the 2nd half we had clearly worn them down. Troy began to become frustrated and tired and the turnovers started coming in heaps, which really broke things wide open. Grant himself has said numerous times that essentially he wants our defensive intensity and pressure to be our m.o. as a team, to be what people know us as, if you know what I mean.
After two mid-major opponents at home, we'll find out where the Tide is at this weekend when Bama plays three opponents in four days in the upcoming Paradise Jam tournament in the Virgin Islands, beginning with Big East opponent Seton Hall on Friday.