Alabama Football and Basketball News and Tidbits

Catch up on Alabama football and basketball news and tidbits. A weekly update that lists the lesser known events of the past week.

Every week there is new Alabama football and basketball information. Some important information does not include enough detail for Bama Hammer to write individual posts.

To make sure Alabama fans don’t miss out, we follow tweets and message boards to gather lots of tidbits of information. Going forward we will post them at least as often as each week on Sunday.

Alabama Football – Getting to 85 Scholarship Players

During the past couple of weeks, the 2017 roster was reduced by two with the announced departures of Shawn Jennings and O. J. Smith.

Jennings, the brother of Anfernee Jennings, was to be a redshirt freshman linebacker. O. J. Smith would have been a redshirt senior, behind Da’Ron Payne and Josh Frazier at nose tackle. Neither player was projected to earn much playing time in 2017, though Smith will be a loss in terms of D-Line depth.

Based on our calculation those two exits leave Alabama football at 87 scholarships for 2017. Either two more players will decide to leave in the coming weeks or scholarship adjustments are necessary.

Last season, walk-ons Jamey Mosley and Levi Wallace were awarded scholarships after the season began. It is possible they could return to walk-on status to reach the 85 scholarship limit. Our guess is those two scholarships will be renewed and two more players will decide to transfer out.

Players and off-the-field issues

There was good news for a current player and a former player this week.

Nick Saban reported Deionte Thompson is with the team and currently not facing legal action. Thompson was allegedly involved in a fight over spring break and returned to Texas to discuss the complaint with law enforcement.

This is what Saban said, as reported by Charlie Potter of Bama Online.

"Thompson was back in school and “cooperating with law enforcement” before the end of the semester after missing the final week of spring practice and the final spring scrimmage. “As far as I know, there’s never been any charges and nothing’s really ever happened that — it seemed like a lot of nothing with everything we can find out about (it).”"

In other off-the-field news, former Tide player Trent Richardson had charges of domestic abuse dismissed in court.

A magic former Tider headed north

Javier Arenas has been in Canada for three weeks working out with the Ottawa Redblacks of the Canadian Football League. Arenas is expected to be a key player for Ottawa in the coming season.

If you missed our profile of Javi in our list of 30 Great 3-Star Alabama football players, you can see it here, Javier Arenas.

Alabama basketball to face No. 1 Arizona in 2017

Talk about testing yourself in the early out-of-conference season, Avery Johnson has stepped up big-time.

The date for the away portion of a two-game deal with Arizona has been finalized. Alabama basketball will travel to Tuscon on December 9 to face the probable No. 1 ranked team, the Arizona Wildcats.

Arizona will come to Tuscaloosa in the 2018-19 season but the actual date has not been set.

Tide Men’s Basketball preseason Canadian swing not full of cupcakes

In early August Alabama basketball will travel to Canada for three preseason contests. The Tide will play McGill, Ottawa and Carleton.  If you think those are three cupcake games, think again.

In 2013 the Wisconsin Badgers made a similar trip and played Carleton. The Badgers lost 95-82. In 2016, Carleton played Wichita State in an exhibition game. The Shockers were destroyed by Carleton 100-75.

Alabama Women’s Basketball has good early challenge

The Alabama women will travel to Puerto Rico for some tough competition. Expectations are that Kristy Curry’s team will make the NCAA field next season. In Puerto Rico, the Tide will face two NCAA tournament teams from last season, Elon and North Carolina State.

Next: 30 Tide Greats who were 3-Star Recruits

Check in with us often. There is no shortage of interesting and important happenings, even during the offseason.