Alabama’s Season Was a Real Longshot

After Alabama had lost to Mississippi on Jan. 7 to fall to 7-6, Crimson Tide Coach Mark Gottfried took a couple of his children on a walk and acknowledged that the season “might get ugly.”

The team’s leading scorer, forward Chuck Davis, had just suffered a season-ending knee injury, leaving Gottfried with a seven-man rotation. At the time, the NCAA tournament was low on the list of priorities for a coach worried about finding enough bodies to make it through his next Southeastern Conference game.

But here was the Crimson Tide in the final moments of a second-round game in the Oakland Regional on Saturday at Cox Arena, with the ball in the hands of sharpshooter Ronald Steele and only two points separating 10th-seeded Alabama and second-seeded UCLA.

“As a coach, especially in close games, you leave the gym and you’re saying, ‘I could have done this different, I could have done that,’ ” Gottfried would say later. “I wouldn’t do anything different. I’d put the ball in Ron Steele’s hands down two.”

When UCLA guard Arron Afflalo cut off Steele’s driving lane, the sophomore guard pulled up for a three-point attempt that could have sent Alabama into the Sweet 16 and allowed Gottfried, a former Bruin assistant coach, to feel better about not becoming Jim Harrick’s successor.

“Coach called the play for me,” Steele said. “I had a good look at it.”

Said Alabama forward Jermareo Davidson: “I felt we had it won. I counted it.”

Alas, Steele’s shot caromed off the front of the rim and UCLA guard Cedric Bozeman won a mad scramble for the ball with less than a second remaining, leaving Gottfried and the Tide on the short end of a 62-59 loss.

“We’re disappointed,” said Gottfried, a UCLA assistant from 1988-95 who then became the head coach at Murray State. “But I couldn’t be more proud of this team. We were 7-6 and lost our best player and today we were a jump shot away from reaching the Sweet 16.

“I’m so proud of our team. They overcame a lot.”

The Tide was short-handed for part of the second half after Davidson picked up a disputed fourth foul with 9:34 remaining.

“As of right now,” Davidson said, “I’m still clueless as to how I got it.”

UCLA would extend its lead to eight points with Davidson on the bench, but Alabama never lost hope.

“Even though we were down,” Tide forward Richard Hendrix said, “we felt like the game was ours.”

Alabama steadily chipped away at its deficit, pulling to within 57-56 on a free throw by Steele with 1:05 left. Afflalo responded by draining a pull-up three-pointer with the shot clock winding down on the Bruins’ next possession, but Steele nearly had an opportunity to tie the score when he drew a foul on a three-point attempt that almost went in.

Steele converted all three free throws, making it 60-59 with 21 seconds to play, before UCLA forward Luc Richard Mbah a Moute made one of two free throws two seconds later to set the stage for Steele’s last shot.

“I thought it was good when it left my hands, but it was just a little bit short,” Steele said of his three-pointer.

Said Gottfried: “We work on that shot in practice and he knocks it down all the time.... We felt like in the huddle we were going to win the game. The shot just didn’t go down.”