Conference play is a difficult time to try to battle through injuries.
In a league that is as unforgiving as the Southeastern Conference, University of Alabama women’s basketball coach Wendell Hudson knows his team isn’t going to get any breaks.
So instead of using a rash of injuries as an excuse, Hudson knows the Crimson Tide have to raise their level and continue to play hard because that is the only way they will get things back on track.
“We’re just trying to get healthy,” Hudson said. “I think the biggest key is making adjustments to where people are playing, getting people to recognize their roles and getting people to recognize they’re roles have changed.”
Alabama (10-7, 0-3 SEC) may not be in much better health by the time it tips off at 8 tonight (Fox Sports South) against Mississippi State (10-5, 0-2) at Foster Auditorium.
The Crimson Tide has lost three games in a row and is coming off an 84-40 loss to LSU on Sunday in which it shot only 15.2 percent from the field. Alabama also was limited to eight active players in the game, as junior Jessica Merritt and sophomore Shafontaye Myers suffered concussions and are day-to-day.
Factor into the equation that junior college All-American Kyra Crosby also has been limited to nine games (three starts) and things are even tougher for the Crimson Tide. Hudson said Wednesday morning her received news from Meghan Perkins that she had family issues and had to leave school to return home. Perkins’ status for tonight’s game is unclear.
Alabama has been up and down since its best win of the season, an 80-76 victory against Kansas on Dec. 4. It lost at North Texas and at North Carolina State before returning home to beat Presbyterian and Air Force. Since then, though, Hudson said his team has been hit with plenty of “freak” things, including two players bumping heads and getting concussions.
“The injuries have definitely forced other people into playing more minutes than some of them play,” Hudson said.
Hudson said the injuries have limited what the team can do in practice, and they have forced assistant coaches to get involved so the team can work on as many things as possible.
Despite all of the uncertainty surrounding her, Jasmine Robinson leads the team in scoring at 12.4 points per game. Senior guard Ericka Russell, the only players to start all 17 games this season, is second in scoring (10.2 ppg.) and is third on the team in steals (24).
Hudson knows the injuries will force some of his younger players to mature faster. He hopes they can take this experience and develop a better understanding what it takes to play for 40 minutes at this level.
“We’re just going to have to adjust how we play some and play smarter,” Hudson said.
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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