Alabama Basketball: Veteran lineup leads Lady Crimson Tide
The Alabama women’s basketball team is off to a 5-2 start in the 2022-23 season. The team has looked impressive thus far in its games against lower level competition, avoiding slip-ups and defeating Alabama A&M, Tulane, Gardner-Webb, and Mercer by an average margin of 29.6 points per game. The Alabama Basketball teams have both been good this season, combining to go 11-3 with two losses to ranked opponents.
The Crimson Tide also competed well in the Pink Flamingo Championships in the Bahamas during Thanksgiving week. In its opening round matchup, Alabama drew a tough Utah squad that is currently undefeated and ranked 16th in the country. The Tide women competed with the Utes as well as anyone has all year, leading at halftime but ultimately falling by a score of 93-86.
Bama was able to bounce back two days later with a gritty 61-58 win over Wake Forest of the ACC to finish the week 1-1. The only other loss Alabama women’s basketball has suffered this season was when it dropped a 67-59 decision on the road at South Florida.
Alabama Basketball: Lady Crimson Tide experienced in backcourt
Coming into this season, Alabama returned its entire starting five from last season. The core group of Brittany Davis, Megan Abrams, Hannah Barber, JaMya Mingo-Young, and Jada Rice has given head coach Kristy Curry some roster stability to work with while navigating the early season non-conference schedule.
Brittany Davis has once again been one of the SEC’s top performers. The graduate student has posted team-high numbers of 16.7 points and 6.3 rebounds per game as the centerpiece of the Alabama offense. She has picked up right where she left off last season, when she led the team with 17.7 points and 7.0 boards per game.
Fellow grad student and point guard Megan Abrams is averaging 10.9 points and 3.1 rebounds per game. She averaged over 15 points a game last season, and will be a key member of this team as it gets into conference play.
A third graduate student, Hannah Barber, has shot the lights out for Alabama women’s basketball this season. Barber is averaging 9.1 points and 2.4 assists per game while shooting 61 percent from the three-point line. She connected on a team-high 38.7 percent of her three-pointers last season, averaging 8.0 points and a team-high 3.0 assists.
Senior guard Jamya Mingo-Young is the Swiss Army knife that holds this team together. The former Mississippi State transfer is off to a bit of a slow start this season, averaging 6.3 points, 5.0 rebounds, and 2.0 assists per game. As a junior in 2021-22, she posted 11.6 points, 6.7 rebounds, 2.5 assists, and 2.4 steals per game. She ranked third on the team in scoring behind Davis and Abrams, second in rebounding, second in assists, and first in steals. For this team to reach its potential, it will need Mingo-Young to play her best basketball.
Alabama Basketball: Rice owns the paint for the Lady Tide
Center Jada Rice rounds out this group as the fourth graduate student. She is averaging 7.3 points, 4.3 rebounds, and 3.0 blocks per game. Rice averaged 6.2 points, 4.9 rebounds, and 1.6 blocks last season. The rim protector has accounted for 21 of Alabama’s 29 blocks this season, and nearly 60 percent of its blocks over the past two years since transferring from NC State.
This group of veterans has been supplemented by the play of transfers Aaliyah Nye and Loyal McQueen. Illinois transfer Aaliyah Nye, a junior, is averaging 8.3 points per game and shooting 52 percent from the three-point line. Junior guard Loyal McQueen is averaging 7.6 points and a team-leading 2.6 assists per game after transferring in from Georgia Tech.
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Bama Hammer will continue to track the Alabama women’s basketball team as it progresses through the 2022-23 season.