🏀 Trevor Lacey to transfer....

[UAgrad93]

The University and Coach Grant has released a statement in regards to Lacey. He has decided to leave after 2 seasons. What is going on?

 

[doemasters]

no idea but that just sucks

 

[psychojoe]

Maybe he wants to be just a PG instead of playing both as he has been.

A real bummer.

 

[alabama mike]

Two transfers going out of the program in the past few days IS NOT a good sign. I sure hope the new transfer coming in can put up some points.

 

[planomateo]

Grant is going to catch some hell over this transfer.

Maybe its me, Lacey was pretty sloppy with the ball at times and his body language at times was questionable.

I wish him well in the B1G or ACC, wonder what would have happened had he went to Kentucky.

 

[TerryP]

Grant is going to catch some hell over this transfer.

Maybe its me, Lacey was pretty sloppy with the ball at times and his body language at times was questionable.

I wish him well in the B1G or ACC, wonder what would have happened had he went to Kentucky.

Some were already giving him hell. This just adds more to the mix and pushes others up a notch.

IF we take his ranking coming out of high school as a reliable indicator of the talent he had/has, he certainly hasn't lived up to his potential. Where does that fault lie? There's sufficient reasons to put it on TL as well as reason to question player development on the coaching staff. Where does that majority of the fault lie?

Shannon, over on BOL, agreed with the content of this post put up last night by one of their members. Here's a C&P just for the sake of one mans opinion.

I have been in contact with Lacey's former HS coach Jack Doss today. Trevor did not fully decide to leave until a meeting this morning with Anthony Grant. The meeting did led Lacey to question the direction of the program and he was very concerned about the player development. Coach Doss told me: Trevor loves Alabama, but player development is very important to his future. He will enroll at a Big 10 or ACC school. Three teams on his list are Syracuse, Michigan and Indiana. He did not start making calls about destinations until this afternoon. He's been inquiring about prospective programs scholarship situations. Will not be released to an SEC school. He will sit out and have two years of eligibility left.


This ruined my day as I have been a staunch Grant supporter since he was hired, but I now realize the signs I saw starting in year two were a growing trend. Most of his first full recruiting class transferred out and despite a good second season and then his best class with Levi, Trevor, Cooper, Obasohan and Jacobs, he cannot keep players in his program. Former UA big man Roy Rogers told me during the Gottfried era that it was never a good sign when players transferred out every year and this has continued under Grant. Player development has been poor. Jacobs has not developed and Moussa Gueye never got better the last two seasons, though he had a limited ceiling. Cooper has only marginally improved and is inconsistent. Releford has improved, but still has fits of inconsistency. I also think they have been lazy recruiters. We should have signed Juco big Rod Rucker last spring. He was at NW FL JC. They finished his sophomore season as the national junior college runner-up. We watched him but let him sign with UAB. He averaged a near double double. Rucker is a little undersized at 6'6 but he still would have fit our team. Bama definitely goes dancing with him. Not signing a big with Pollard was a huge mistake by the staff.

Also, with our team being perimeter oriented, we needed to play more uptempo basketball. It is more fun for the players and helps draw fans to the arena. Our style of play has definitely started to effect recruiting. This upcoming season and class is VERY important to Anthony Grant's future. Lacey's transfer and his reasoning of not being developed properly will make it tough to put together a much-needed great class. Lacey was one of the best HS players I have ever seen and should have become a 3-4 year program guy who averaged 17 ppg and was a first-team All-SEC guard with a shot to be an NBA player. Instead, our lack of recruiting in the post and our slow down style hurt his game a lot. It made the Lacey, Releford, Cooper and Randolph foursome have to carry too much of a burden without an inside compliment and not pushing the ball enough.


Additionally, the loss of associate head coach Dan Hipsher has been felt immensely. He was the buffer between the players and Grant. He did a great job keeping guys focused and eased their concerns. Player relations between Grant and the players aren't great. This is now evident with Lacey leaving and now I understand why he could never reach Green & Mitchell. A strong head coach would have reached JaMychal and even Mitchell I believe. We had a sweet 16-level team before last season and should have gone dancing this season, even though Steele and Engstrom's injuries were tough. Better player development and style of play would have allowed Pollard to have a more prominent role and Obasohan would have come on even quicker, IMO. Pollard needs to develop his skill set, but could have helped more if we played uptemp, same with Obasohan. Each would thrive in a true pressure system. I still hope Grant can turn it around next season, but I fear attrition is not over. Heard today Pollard & Cooper could be next. This would doom Grant's tenure for sure and lead to a change at the end of next season. This would be very sad, as I was so excited when we hired Coach Grant. I've told people Grant was on the clock after this season. He's a good man, but after today, I don't think he can build a solid program at Alabama. It is critical to be able to relate to your players and get them to buy in. This still has not happened going into year five and I fear will be the deathblow to Grant's program. I hope I'm wrong but I'm not optimistic anymore!

 

[psychojoe]

I have also heard Pitt and Arizona in the mix.

 

[Bo]

I agree 100% with the C&P Terry put up from BOL. I said all year that with the lack of an inside presence that we should have played a lot more uptempo. I think it was even proven on the court that Alabama played a lot better during those spurts when we did play uptempo.

 

[psychojoe]

I am not ready to join the Grant bashers yet. We have won twenty games for three seasons in a row. We have not done that since Wimp was on the sidelines. YOu have to ask the question about who we could get who is better.

As far as the "run and gun", yes it is fun to watch. However, unless you want to adopt the approach VMI used a few years ago of pressing all the time, going for a steal and if you don't get it concede the score and go back to offense, then your running game comes from two sources, defensive rebounds and turnovers.

I don't need to tell any of you that we were not a great rebounding team last year, and usually had to send our relatively small team to the defensive boards in order to keep the other guys from getting a lot of easy putbacks, so our running game from this source is very limited. We did get a lot of turnovers from our defense, and we ran pretty well out of that. Releford is one of the best open court finishers in college basketball. I will say that the secondary break was not as efficient as it could have been, but that came from shooters such as Randolph and Cooper passing up open looks in favor of setting up the half court offense.

Unless you have a roster of McDonald's All Americans I just don't see rushing up court after the other team scores and jacking up the first shot you can. It might be exciting, but it is also losing basketball.

 

[Bo]

When I say uptempo, I'm thinking more along the lines of Nolan Richardsons and Mike Andersons 40 minutes of hell. Granted, I realize we probably weren't aren't deep enough to do that the whole game since it requires a lot of substituting, but something along those lines is what I was refering to.

 

[psychojoe]

When I say uptempo, I'm thinking more along the lines of Nolan Richardsons and Mike Andersons 40 minutes of hell. Granted, I realize we probably weren't aren't deep enough to do that the whole game since it requires a lot of substituting, but something along those lines is what I was refering to.

I understand what you are saying, Bo. I was more targetting the post on BOL. I didn't like our offense in the half court much either. There seemed to be too much of Randolph and Cooper passing up decent shots early in the shot clock and then one of the Trevors forcing something up late in the clock.

 

[TerryP]

I'm with psycho here...far too soon, IMO, to jump on the anti-Grant bandwagon for me.

Granted, I didn't have the opportunity to watch what I'd like to have watched this season. However, a few things that jump out at me.

Preseason, I said finishing fourth in the SEC was this teams' high mark. Included in those statements were thoughts that UF would win the SEC, UK would come in second. The shock of this season for me is two fold. One, Mizzou finishing where they did and Ole Miss coming in third.

Another perspective going along the same lines. Not only did we get a first round bye, we had one for the second round as well and pulling the 5th seeded UT team gave us the most competitive game—based on the seasons results—than other teams faced. We lost in the SEC to UF who was an eventual Elite 8 team.

I'm not excited about the NIT bid and results but I'm not disappointed either. Melancholy is an apt adjective.

In all, I see some positive things to take away from the season considering how we started in terms of numbers and expectations.

Now, that said, seeing the attrition? That troubles me.

 

[ElephantStomp]

I'm not ready to jump on the anti Grant wagon yet, but I don't think he can stay at UA past this year if results don't change.

it troubles me deeply that players are leaving then hearing the reasons behind Lacy's transfer....if you're not developing players then really what are you doing? You add to that the fact that the coaching staff just hasn't recruited very well and really at some point you need to really start thinking about making changes

 

[bamaraider]

Some were already giving him hell. This just adds more to the mix and pushes others up a notch.

IF we take his ranking coming out of high school as a reliable indicator of the talent he had/has, he certainly hasn't lived up to his potential. Where does that fault lie? There's sufficient reasons to put it on TL as well as reason to question player development on the coaching staff. Where does that majority of the fault lie?

Shannon, over on BOL, agreed with the content of this post put up last night by one of their members. Here's a C&P just for the sake of one mans opinion.

Welcome back TerryP! :icon_cheers:

 

[bamaraider]

Hits us pretty hard when it comes to depth. Sucks too hear also because I expected a lot out of him this upcoming season and the season after. Wish him luck wherever he goes then, just wish he could have stayed.

 

[planomateo]

Impressive.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>Congrats to @<a href="https://twitter.com/alabamahoops">alabamahoops</a> which led all <a href="https://twitter.com/search/%23SEC">#SEC</a> men's basketball teams with six student-athletes named to the SEC Winter Academic Honor Roll!</p>&mdash; Aaron Jordan (@asjordan1) <a href="https://twitter.com/asjordan1/status/327162496878264322">April 24, 2013</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

 

[TerryP]

Impressive.

<iframe style="width: 1px; height: 1px; border: medium none; position: absolute;" allowtransparency="true" class="twitter-tweet twitter-tweet-rendered" id="twitter-widget-0" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe>

Congrats to @alabamahoops which led all #SEC men's basketball teams with six student-athletes named to the SEC Winter Academic Honor Roll!
— Aaron Jordan (@asjordan1) April 24, 2013​

<script async="" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Yes, it is.

However, the first thing that comes to mind is Gottfried's graduation rate which led the conference and was at the top of the nation as well. If I'm not mistaken, his graduation rate was close to 100%.


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[TideAlum05]

I am not ready to join the Grant bashers yet. We have won twenty games for three seasons in a row. We have not done that since Wimp was on the sidelines. YOu have to ask the question about who we could get who is better.

I don't understand any of this logic. Winning 20 games means nothing when the SEC is in a period of historical terribleness. We won 20 games 3 times in a row and went to the tourney once and even then went 1 and done.

We could get plenty of people who are better coaches with the money we are paying Grant. Sanderson, Newton, and Gottfried aare all much better coaches than Grant and they all coached at Bama. I won't throw Moore under the bus for the hire. Grant was an up and comer with a name and we paid up to get him, but it just hasn't worked out. The worst thing that could happen is for Grant to make the tourney next year and go 1 and done again so we have to keep him.

Just look at all of the transfers in his tenure. Trevor Lacey is a kid who played a lot (25 mpg this year and 31 mpg last) and he's still willing to sit out a year to leave the program. I'll even admit that Lacey was overrated coming out of HS and I don't even think he has a snowball's chance at the NBA, but this kid is leaving because he knows his skills won't be showcased with Grant's horrible "offense."

 

[TerryP]

Ironically, it was a 20 win season that resulted in the Elite 8 appearance under Gottfried. Gottfried only saw three season with a winning record in SEC play. Grant, on the other hand, has had a winning record in conference play in each of his three years.

Sorry, but if there is one thing amiss in your post it's including Gottfried's name with CM's and Wimp's. Heck, quite frankly, he doesn't belong in the conversation with Grant at this point.

 

[TheChief]

It's difficult to imagine what is going on behind the scenes when the team is not on the court playing on television. I wish I was a body language expert, and I'm not so take this for what it's worth (not much I guess), but to me Grant appeared to be brooding much of the time on the bench. Maybe the team wasn't doing what he was asking them to do. Maybe that included when the players weren't on the court.

I've posted numerous times about the inept offense this year. I've also posted how much I admire Coach Grant, and that goes back long before this season. I'm a big Anthony Grant fan. I guess I'm on record hinting that a coach at Bama has to win or be replaced. But, I'm holding out judgment on this (like it matters what I think, I know). I've seen situations similar to this way too much in sports. I looked back at Wimp's record and he had years where his teams barely finished even, and one year much worse than that. Then he would have years after that where the team was fantastic.

What I am concerned about is recruiting and trying to win with the players Bama had on the team. This situation can't help.

We shall see.