Crimson Tide focused on installing new system

BIRMINGHAM | New University of Alabama men’s basketball coach Anthony Grant has been on the practice floor with his Crimson Tide team since Friday, but isn’t handing out any rave reviews just yet.

“It’s been mixed,” Grant said Thursday at SEC Basketball Media Day at the Birmingham Marriott. “I’ve been impressed with the work ethic of this group and their willingness to be coached. But they are getting used to a system they are unfamiliar with. I don’t know how quickly we can learn and make the transition to what our staff wants to do. I guess any coach would tell you that they want it to happen quicker, but we’ve got our first game in two weeks, so there is a sense of urgency to what we want to get accomplished.”

Asked about a potential lineup, particularly with four starters back from last year’s team, Grant replied, “I don’t have any returning starters. I left all those guys at VCU.”

“I look at it as if we have 11 freshmen. It’s a new experience for all of them, so every day is a brand new day. I think as they learn more about us, (the players) will get a little more comfortable, but right now they look at me sometimes as if I had two heads.”

Grant was also asked if Alabama has enough talent in place to make it to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in four years.

“I can’t answer that until we play,” he said. “My focus right now is on installing a system.”

Grant did mention a couple of individual players when asked directly about their progress.

“I’m excited to be coaching (sophomore forward) JaMychal Green,” he said. “I had him for 20 days with the United States under-18 team two years ago, so I know he is a great kid.

“I’ve really been pleased with (junior guard) Senario Hillman and his effort. He’s a guy who, in this style of play, could really blossom because of his athleticism. He’s a 6-1 guard who can be a rebounder for us and be an offensive weapon in (our) up-tempo style because of his ability to get to the rim. I think it’s a process now of (Hillman) understanding what his role is, what we want him to do and what we don’t.

“Mikhail Torrance (a senior guard) has been terrific. He really wants to win and has worked hard to prepare, watching film and getting ready. I think the experience that he got at the end of last year has helped him.”

Torrance was also at Media Day and said he had a clear goal for his senior season.

“Obviously, I haven’t played in the NCAA (Tournament) since I’ve been in college, so that’s it,” he said. “That’s the No. 1 thing, to get Alabama some national attention. Now, we’ve got the coach to do it.”

ALABAMA WOMEN’S coach Wendell Hudson dealt with the first-year transition in the 2008-09 season. Now in his second year, he says the focus has changed.

“Last year, we had to teach them to play hard,” he said. “This year, we are teaching them how to play smart. We are adding some X-and-O things that we could not add last year. We are so much further along. Understanding how to win is what we’ve got to do now.”

Alabama returns all five starters from last year’s team, but Hudson said that “it’s pretty wide open. There might be one or two players who I can see in our starting lineup right now, but there is a lot of competition.”

One player who has attracted early attention is point guard LaToya King, a transfer from Seminole (Fla.) Community College.

“Toya is a really good point guard,” said Ericka Russell, Alabama’s sophomore guard. “She really pushes the ball up the floor. I am looking forward to playing with her.”

KENTUCKY COACH John Calipari held court for an hour on Thursday, regaling writers with his opinions on a variety of topics.

For one, he said expectations were extremely high for his Wildcats, the overwhelming preseason pick to win the SEC title despite missing the NCAA Tournament a year ago.

“The expectations in Kentucky are always high,” he said. “But we may very well start a junior, a sophomore and three freshmen. That would make us the youngest team in the country. And with that many freshmen, you just don’t know. We will have to have some adversity hit us before we know how we handle it. It’s all laughter and giggles right now, but when we lose a game that we aren’t supposed to lose, that’s when we will find out about ourselves.”

Calipari, considered one of the nation’s best recruiters, also said that he considers summer recruiting “a waste of time.”

“People want us to be accountable for our players, so where we should be in the summer is on campus with the players, not out recruiting,” he said. “Summer recruiting is a waste of time. In summer, I am the cardboard cop. I just stand there and wave with a big grin on my face so the guys that we are recruiting can see me. In my opinion, all our recruiting should be done in April and September.”

THE BEST player at SEC Media Day on Thursday may have been a walk-on.

Jarvis Varnado, the center for SEC West favorite Mississippi State, gave up his scholarship last season when he entered his name the NBA draft. MSU head coach Rick Stansbury used the scholarship to sign an incoming player, so when Varnado decided to return to MSU for his senior season, he did so paying his own way, borrowing the $5,151 dollars to pay for a year’s tuition at MSU.

“I’ve been down that road a million times, where a player looks at the draft, I hold his scholarship and he leaves,” Stansbury said. “I told Jarvis and his father that it was all his decision on whether to go, but that I would have to use the scholarship. This way, it’s a win-win situation for everybody.”

ALABAMA’S GRANT was asked about the pressures of coaching basketball at a school that currently has the No. 1 football team in the Associated Press poll.

“We play football?,” Grant joked.

He quickly added that he is “a big college football fan.”

“I think it is great,” Grant said. “To see the excitement on our campus, any time you can be in that type of environment and see the passion that our fans display, it’s great. When you look to the success that Alabama has enjoyed in football since the beginning of time, I guess, then you want to be a part of that success.

“When I was at Florida (as an assistant coach), we were good at both and I think Alabama has the resources to compete in championships in every sport in which we compete.”

Reach Cecil Hurt at cecil.hurt@tuscaloosanews.com or at 205-722-0225.