By Chris DePew
TideFans.com staff
Nov. 17, 2015
Where to watch: Alabama (1-0) at Dayton (1-0) – Today noon Central, UD Arena, ESPN
Who to watch: Dazon Ingram – The freshman from Theodore showed little evidence of opening-game jitters last Friday, finishing with 16 points and six rebounds. He looked comfortable handling the ball in traffic inside and showed a nice shooting touch. And he will need all of that poise against crafty Dayton junior Scoochie Smith, who rang up eight points, five assists and four steals in the Flyers’ opener, an 84-53 blowout of Southeast Missouri State. Dayton returns four starters off an NCAA tournament team and the Flyers’ lockdown defense could be the best Ingram sees until SEC play.
Big thing to watch: The free throw line. Clearly the Tide isn’t going to pull the upset with another 55 percent showing from the stripe, but Bama is almost bound to get better, even if it is just by the law of averages. More telling will be how many attempts it gets and how many it allows the Flyers. The surest route to getting free throws is being aggressive on offense, and as the Tide eased off the gas in the second half of its opener, Kennesaw State virtually pulled even in that department (27 FTA to 26 in favor of Alabama). By contrast, the Flyers dominated attempts against SEMO, 22-8.
Follow Chris DePew on Twitter at @TideFansChris