Gottfried's Pan-Am trip a 'great experience'
TUSCALOOSA | University of Alabama basketball coach Mark Gottfried said his stint as an assistant coach for the USA team in the Pan-American Games was “a great experience” even though the American team did not win a medal in the event.
Team USA, composed entirely of collegiate players, went 3-2 in pool play in the Games, which were held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
“We lost our first two games and that knocked us out of the medal round,” Gottfried said. “Then we came back to win our next three. I thought by the end of the tournament, we were playing as well as any team down there, but we had already been eliminated from medal play.
Gottfried said the team was still growing accustomed to the international rules and style of play in its early games.
“There is definitely a transition involved,” he said. “I think if we had been together as a team and had a chance to play a little more before we went to Brazil, we might have done better in the first two games.
“It was still an outstanding experience. All of the players were really great young men. Roy Hibbert [from Georgetown, a team that Alabama will face in December] was really a presence at 7-foot-2. D.J. White [from Tuscaloosa] played really well.”
Gottfried said that Richard Hendrix and Alonzo Gee, the two Alabama players who attended the Pan Am team trials in Philadelphia “looked good,” although neither was chosen for the final squad.
“I think if we had kept two more players for the last round before we picked the team, Richard would have been in there and I think he would have made it,” Gottfried said. “That’s how close he was.”
More international experience is straight ahead for Gottfried, who will be taking his team to Canada for a four-game series in the first week of September.
“We are looking forward to it,” he said. “We start practice next week and we will play four games in three days in Ottawa.”
Gottfried said he expected the Canadian opponents to be “competitive” and said he would use the four games to look at his entire roster.
That might even mean the first glimpse of senior point guard Ronald Steele since his off-season knee surgery.
“There is a possibility he could play in one game,” Gottfried said. “He is going to make the trip. Right now, we are still going to wait and see but his doctors are starting tp push him to do more, and it’s possible that he could play.”
The final regular-season schedule still has not been released by UA, but one road trip that has been scheduled definitely has the opposition excited.
Mercer coach Mark Slonaker told the Macon (Ga.) Telegraph earlier this week that Alabama would be the Bears’ home opener in Macon, Ga., this November.
“When they signed Senario Hillman [a freshman guard who played high school basketball in the Macon area], I thought that would be a natural tie,” Slonaker said. “It was a little late in scheduling. We were pretty set.”
Slonaker said the deal was delayed after waiting for nearly two anxious months to confirm the deal, waiting for Alabama to officially sign off on it. He was ready to talk about it in June, but ESPN contacted Alabama and Gonzaga about a possible television matchup.
“I was getting concerned,” Slonaker said with a laugh. “They were always so good about returning phone calls back in May. For about two weeks, I got really concerned it wasn’t going to happen.”
While there has been no confirmation that an Alabama-Gonzaga game is set, Slonaker said he received written confirmation from UA last Wednesday.
Mercer returns four players who averaged at least 15 minutes per game last year, not including forward Calvin Henry, who played in 14 games before being declared academically ineligible.
“I think it’s our best non-conference schedule in a long time,” said Slonaker, whose Bears lost five times by single digits last season. “It’s obviously big to get a team like Alabama with the talent they have to come here. The whole schedule is certainly going to be a challenge for us.”
Alabama’s non-conference schedule already includes Georgetwon, Texas A&M, Clemson and a tournament trip to Las Vegas.
FOX Sports reported last week that two of the state’s top prep prospects, 6-foot-8 Jamychal Green of St. Jude High School in Montgomery and 6-3 Andrew Steele of John Carroll in Birmingham, have narrowed their college choices to Alabama and Ole Miss.
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