Alabama Loves Avery

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It is no secret that the State of Alabama is football crazy. Hoover High School in Hoover, Alabama has won nine state championships in football since 2000 and it’s a constant battle between the Auburn Tigers and the Alabama Crimson Tide to get the top talent from high school powerhouses such as this within the state. Crimson Tide Football has recently stood head and shoulders above the rest of the college football programs in the nation as they’ve won four national titles since 2009. And although that the University of Alabama will always be thought of as a football school, there is one man that has rolled up his sleeves to show that the athletic program there in Tuscaloosa is more than just the football team.

Last April, Avery Johnson was hired to be the men’s head basketball coach at Alabama. Johnson inherited an Alabama program that has not won the NCAA Tournament game since 2006, and they’ve never made a Final Four appearance. But Johnson knows a thing or two about being an underdog as his life has been defined by it.

Johnson was not a highly sought after player coming out of high school which resulted in him attending New Mexico Junior College. After a year at Cameron University, Johnson would finish his collegiate career at Southern University where he helped them reach the NCAA Tournament. Johnson would then go undrafted by the NBA as his professional career began in 1988 with the Palm Beach Stingrays of the United States Basketball League.

Johnson would get a crack at the NBA in 1988 with the Seattle Supersonics, but he bounced around with several teams in the league until he got his big break with the San Antonio Spurs in 1992 which was actually his second stint with the team. Johnson would become the Spurs starting point guard for the remainder of the decade and he helped San Antonio win their first NBA Championship in 1999.

Johnson’s love of basketball saw him move into the coaching ranks in 2004 as an assistant coach for the Dallas Mavericks. Towards the end of that NBA season, Don Nelson resigned as Mavericks head coach and Johnson would get his first head coaching gig. In Johnson’s first full seasons as the Mavericks head coach, he guided Dallas to just their second 60-win season in franchise history. And that spring, Johnson got the Mavs to the NBA Finals for the first time. After winning the first two games of the NBA Finals, Dallas would lose the next four, but Johnson had proven himself worthy of being a head coach as he was named as the NBA’s Coach of The Year. The following season the Mavs would win a franchise best 67-games, but they fell in the first round of the NBA Playoffs to the upstart Golden State Warriors which symbolized the beginning of the end for Johnson in Dallas. The following season would see the Mavericks go 51-31, but another first round exit in the playoffs saw the organization ready to move on from Johnson.

After a brief stint in broadcasting, Johnson would get another shot to coach in the NBA when he became the head coach of the New Jersey Nets in 2010. In Johnson’s first two seasons with the Nets, he didn’t have a winning record since the team was rebuilding, but the expectations increased upon the franchise’s move to Brooklyn, New York in 2012.

The Nets would get off to a roaring start with an 11-4 record for the month of November which saw Johnson named as the Eastern Conference’s Coach of the Month. But Brooklyn would go 3-10 over their next 13 games and surprisingly Johnson was fired.

Johnson had been out of coaching for nearly three years as he was seeking another shot in the NBA; which made it a bit shocking when he was announced as the new men’s head basketball coach at Alabama last April.

But Johnson’s smile, personality, and leadership are infectious as his name created a buzz around a basketball program at Alabama that is looking to become relevant in the Southeastern Conference.

In Johnson’s first moment in the spotlight with Alabama, his Crimson Tide secured victories over the Wichita State Shockers and Notre Dame Fighting Irish for a fifth-place finished at the AdvoCare International Tournament this past November. Alabama would finish its non-conference slate with a 9-3 mark as they looked to be a player in the Southeastern Conference.

Things didn’t get started on the right foot for the Tide and Johnson in conference play as they began 1-5 which included a 77-61 home loss to the Kentucky Wildcats who have ruled the Southeastern Conference in basketball in the same fashion that Alabama does in football. But the same way that Johnson has never given up throughout his life in order to reach his goals, so has his Alabama team.

Alabama has won their last four conference games with all of them being highlighted by the team’s mental toughness. On February 2, the Crimson Tide scored an 82-80 overtime win on the road against the Mississippi State Bulldogs. Last Wednesday, the Tide scrapped and clawed to a 63-62 home win over the Texas A&M Aggies who were ranked 15th in the nation. And Alabama kept that momentum going for themselves when they traveled to Gainesville, Florida this past Saturday which saw them walk away with their first victory over the Florida Gators in their last 13 tries. Now Alabama is 15-9 overall while being 6-6 in the Southeastern Conference which has the school thinking about potentially making the NCAA Tournament next month. But as we may be surprised with what Alabama Basketball is accomplishing this year, it isn’t a shock to Johnson.

Upon arriving in Tuscaloosa, Johnson set the bar high for himself and his basketball program as he expects them to compete for conference titles and trips to the Final Four. And once you look at Johnson’s NBA resume which includes a successful stint as a player and as a head coach, players want to play for him because they want to be coached by a man that can get them to the next level.

But this current Alabama squad embodies Johnson as they only have two players that are averaging double figures in points, yet they have a winning record which goes back to his “team first mentality”. Johnson’s team has bought in rather quickly to what he is selling and with a remaining schedule that includes a road game with the LSU Tigers, a rematch on the road against Kentucky, and the Southeastern Conference Tournament next month in Nashville, Tennessee, Alabama controls its own destiny as far as making the NCAA Tournament.

Johnson is making believers of him at Alabama while showing that his goal of making the Final Four could one day happen as he is looking to have his name mentioned in the same breath with Bear Bryant and Nick Saban by the folks in Tuscaloosa.

Sources: Basketball-reference.com, Sports-reference.com

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By | 2016-02-15T09:39:14+00:00 February 15th, 2016|Categories: College Basketball|Tags: , , |0 Comments

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