Without Ronald Steele, this isn’t a top 10 team. Without him, Bama might not even be NCAA-tournament caliber right now.

But Steele’s balky knee won’t be acting up forever. And close escapes against inferior teams, like last night’s grinder against Louisiana-Monroe should be a thing of the past. It sounded like a brutal game, at least the part I listened to after being, um, distracted by other things.

The obvious good news is that the Tide won with Steele sidelined and Jemareo Davidson having a brutal shooting night. Mykal Riley going off for 22 points certainly didn’t hurt. In fact, he is making a strong case for starting alongside Steele, with Brandon Hollinger being purely a backup point guard.

Two other bright spots emerged from the box score. One, Alabama finally made its free throws, which was crucial in a game that was in doubt until the last few minutes. 19-for-24 is a great showing, and Alonzo Gee (6-for-8) was the only player to miss twice. Also, it was nice to see 12,268 people found something better to do than play track the university airplane for a night.

Box score

Obviously not a lot left to say when you’re a day-and-a-half behind, but I did want to note that Bama got its best win to date without big scoring efforts from Ronald Steele or Jemareo Davidson. That has to be a good sign, right?

It’s hard to say that Davidson had a quiet night with 10 points and 12 rebounds, but he struggled on offense for long stretches with the outcome in doubt. My educated guess is that a whirlwind weekend of a long plane flight the day before back-to-back games, not to mention the physical and emotional toll of the wreck, finally started catching up with him.

Steele is a little harder to figure. He was up against a solid defensive guard in Stanley Burrell, and he did have six assists, but it didn’t seem like he looked for his shot, even with the Muskateers leading in the second half. Five points on 2-for-7 shooting has to be an upset.

The good news is that the bench, or more correctly Mykal Riley, came back to life after going silent against Iowa. Riley had 13 of the 20 points Bama got from its reserves, after a measly 2-point effort against the Hawkeyes. Alonzo Gee also stepped up after a quiet first half, and Richard Hendrix was the most consistent player all night. The more people who step up to be leaders, the better we’ll be in March.

Box score

It would be easy to dwell on the bad things from Sunday’s 72-60 win against Iowa in the Paradise Jam semis. But before I start griping about the disappearing bench, the poor free throw shooting or the ho-hum rebounding effort, let’s have a moment of appreciation.

Alonzo Gee is the freaking man.

Eight-for-13 from the field. 5-for-7 from the line. He had 21 points, six rebounds, two assists, two steals, a block, no turnovers and enough highlight-reel dunks to earn him a roster spot with the Globetrotters. Last years flashes of potential have gelled into an early all-SEC contender. He’s bypassed Richard Hendrix to become the No. 3 offensive choice, and is breathing down Jemareo Davidson’s neck for No. 2.

That might sound like an insult to his frontcourt teammates. It isn’t. Hendrix had a solid game and Davidson (above) sizzled early and finished with a double-double. But Gee has proven to be extraordinary. His late burst of energy in the first half (namely back-to-back steals that led to transition dunks) erased a deficit against the scrappy but inexperienced Hawkeyes.

Davidson showed no ill effects, physical or emotional, in his first game since the car wreck that killed his girlfriend, Alabama trainer Nikki Murphy. He went strong to the basket early to put Iowa in foul trouble, passed to Hendrix for easy baskets when the defense keyed on him, then returned to shooting late to finish with 15 points.

It’s good to know that the starting frontcourt is so solid, because nobody else except Ronald Steele is contributing this weekend. Brandon Hollinger and Demetrius Jemison each hit a pair of free throws for the only scoring outside of the Big 4. Mykal Riley’s big opening night was apparently a Jean Felix-type mirage. He went 0-for-6, including a brutal 0-for-5 from 3, and never seemed interested in passing into the paint. Mikhail Torrence was 0-for-3 and looked lost for his 10 minutes of playing time.

The bench is going to have to grow up against Xavier. We still owe the Muskateers for a beatdown in Cincinnati nearly three years ago.

Box score

It wasn’t pretty, but Alabama slogged through a Jemareo Davidson-less 71-62 win over Middle Tennessee in the Paradise Jam opener.

 With Davidson missing the game for his girlfriend’s funeral, the frontcourt depth really got tested. Richard Hendrix (left)  scored 16 points but fouled out, as did Demetrius Jemison. Bama barely outrebounded Middle (31-29) and never really pulled away until the last couple of minutes. If the Tide is going to win this tournament, it needs Jemareo back. He will fly in Saturday ahead of Sunday’s game against Iowa, but how much he’ll play (if at all) is unclear.

There were some less-than-pretty trends.

• Coach Gottfried had talked about wanting to rest Ronald Steele’s achy knee. Instead, Steele had to play 38 minutes and Bama needed all of his 20 points to put away the Raiders.
• Excluding six scoreless minutes by Mikhail Torrence, we only played a 7-man rotation.
• Yamene Coleman started for Davidson and got 5 points and 5 rebounds, but didn’t seem to assert himself, especially in the first half. You get the feeling he’s going to be a work in progress that might not break out until his junior year, or even later.

The fun continues Sunday at 5 p.m. The game is supposed to air on either Fox Sports South or SportsSouth (I’ve seen and heard both mentioned.)

Box score

Hard to ask for a better start to the season than Friday’s 96-65 drubbing of Jackson State. Nearly everybody played, nearly everybody scored, the shooting was crisp and the outcome was never in doubt.

Of course, it always helps when your fourth-best scoring option goes on a mad binge before the first media timeout. Alonzo Gee opened the game with a nasty dunk, then started draining threes. He had 10 of Bama’s first 11 points before the Tigers had even worked up a sweat. He cooled off a little to finish with 16, mostly because foul trouble limited him to 18 minutes. At least he found time to add three rebounds, two assists, two steals, and two blocks.

Granted, it’s hard to get a good read on the team against such poor competition (with the exception of scary-good Trey Johnson). JSU may be a favorite in the SWAC, but they looked like play-in game fodder on Friday. What I was mostly interested in was seeing how the new guys fared.

Impressive:

• Mykal Riley tied Jemareo Davidson for team scoring honors with 17 points. He’s already the sixth man, but I can see him moving into the starting lineup at 2-guard and letting Brandon Hollinger concentrate on backing up the point to give Ronald Steele some rest. Riley does need to step up on defense though.
• Demetrius Jemison did a lot of dirty work in the paint, picking up four rebounds to go with a steal and a block. He also went 3-for-6 from the field, including a couple of 15-foot turnaround jumpers. Coach Gottfried singled him out for praise postgame.

Questionable:

• Yamene Coleman had five points and three boards, but seemed overwhelmed and tentative at times. He didn’t use his size advantage and seemed a step slow. Not what you want to see out of the only true center behind Davidson. It didn’t help that he was brutal (3-8) at the line.
• Mikhail Torrance looked out of control when he was put in early. By the time he got back, the rout was on and he seemed to settle down a little. FInished with nine points, but he’s got a long was to go before he can be trusted in SEC play.

Game story

Box score