At this afternoon's press conference, coach Anthony Grant announced that he "anticipates" leading scorer JaMychal Green will be "dressed and available" for tomorrow's crucial home game against Mississippi State. This will be Green's first game back after missing the last four games due to suspension.
This is nothing but good news for Bama fans. Alabama has played well its last two games without Green, thanks largely to some nice defensive performances and some big-time contributions from perimeter players Trevor Releford, Andrew Steele, Rodney Cooper, and Trevor Lacey. However, those two wins came against two of the least-dangerous frontcourts in the SEC. In the two previous games without Green, against LSU and Florida, Alabama was completely dominated on the interior. With one of the SEC's top frontcourts coming to Coleman Coliseum tomorrow, this is a very good time for Green to return to the lineup.
As has been well-documented, Green will be coming off his third suspension in Grant's three seasons as head coach, and the last two times it has happened Green has come back focused and hungry. Let's hope that's the case this time around.
The news was not as good for freshman guard Trevor Lacey, who Grant listed as "doubtful" for the Mississippi State game due to an injury he suffered on Thursday night against Arkansas. An MRI today confirmed that Lacey's injury was a sprained ankle, which means he'll likely miss time but should be able to return to action at some point this season.
Hopefully that return will be sooner rather than later, because Lacey has looked extremely dangerous the last two games. He lit up Tennessee for 18 points, and then started out on fire against Arkansas, scoring 8 points in only 6 minutes on the court before his injury. The injury was poorly timed for Lacey, who has had an up and down freshman season, but had really seemed to have "the light come on" as they say in his most recent outing. Hopefully when he does return he will pick up where he left off prior to the injury.
We'll have more on tomorrow's crucial showdown with Mississippi State later today or tomorrow morning.
UPDATE: Per Cecil Hurt, the Mississippi State game is officially a sellout.