Alabama basketball hopes to bounce back

TUSCALOOSA — Call it the season opener, part II.

Alabama’s men’s basketball team stumbled out of the gate Sunday, but expects to rebound, literally, at home tonight against Florida A&M in a game televised on Comcast/Charter Sports Southeast at 8 p.m.

Crimson Tide senior point guard Ronald Steele scored 20 of his game-high 25 points in the second half in Sunday’s 72-69 loss to Mercer. He played 35 minutes on his surgically repaired knees.

“I thought Ronald Steele, as the game went on, showed his competitive greatness,” Alabama coach Mark Gottfried said. “He feels the responsibility to put the team on this back, which he doesn’t need to feel that, but that’s his makeup. That’s what he wants; he wants to deliver in such a great way.”

Steele had to take over because Alonzo Gee, Senario Hillman, Mikhail Torrance and Brandon Hollinger ended up a combined 5-for-31 from the field.

“Obviously, last night wasn’t what we had planned,” Gottfried said Monday. “We couldn’t force the tempo as much as we like. We had to learn how to play effectively, which obviously we didn’t get that done. ... It’s a great teaching opportunity for us.”

The next quiz comes tonight, when the Rattlers (0-2) visit Coleman Coliseum.

FAMU, which opens its season with six straight road games, has lost at Kansas State 96-57 and at Wichita State 77-53. Dunnell Webb leads the team with 11.5 points and 5.5 rebounds per game. FAMU has three starters returning to a team that went 15-17 a year ago.

Tonight’s game, however, will be much more about Alabama than Florida A&M.

“We’ve got to learn how to play when the game slows down, and we’ve got to rebound the basketball a lot better,” Gottfried said.

Freshman JaMychal Green of Montgomery scored 17 points and grabbed 12 rebounds in his collegiate opener. Still, Mercer outrebounded Alabama 56-38.

On Thursday, the Tide travels to Hawaii for the EA Sports Maui Invitational. They will open the tournament on Monday at 11 p.m. and then play either North Carolina or Chaminade on Tuesday.

“These guys want to win,” Gottfried said. “They ... understand what happened from a rebounding perspective or offensively the shots that we weren’t making. They want to improve.

“... Certainly it’s not the way we wanted to start. But it is one game. We are going to play 30 games this year and we have a lot of room for improvement.”