For North Alabama, Playing at Assembly Hall is Something Special
FLORENCE, Ala. — The clock wound down to zero inside Flowers Hall on the campus of the University of North Alabama, and with that, the 400 or so fans worked their way out of the small basketball arena. The game with Carver College was over, and the Lions had themselves their first victory of the season.
The next stop for North Alabama, a team in just its second year of Division I basketball? That would be Indiana University.
Their Tuesday night inside Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall will be dramatically different than their Sunday afternoon was on their beautiful yet quaint and tiny campus just north of downtown in this charming northwest Alabama city. It’s a perfect snapshot for the wide-ranging dichotomy that is major-college basketball.
On one hand, you have mighty Indiana with its storied history and five national championship banners hovering over the court at massive Assembly Hall with its 17,000-plus seats and best-in-basketball aura. Their opponent at 7 p.m. Tuesday night, North Alabama, actually has a storied history of its own. The 190-year-old school, the oldest in Alabama, was a Division II basketball juggernaut for years, winning two national titles.
Yes, they have banners of their own as well.
But it is different, oh so different. Their gym has about 2,200 seats and only about 20 percent of them were in use on Sunday afternoon. Official paid attendance was 479. Granted, it was an early Sunday game in the Bible Belt, and that is always a factor, but the environment was completely different from what the Lions will see Tuesday night, when 15,000 or so Hoosiers fans will be loud and proud in saying hello to their nonconference opponents.
But you know who could care less about those dramatic differences in arenas and programs and perceptions?
That would be the North Alabama players. As far as they’re concerned, it’s just a game of five-on-five on Tuesday night.
“And they’ll go there and compete,’’ North Alabama coach Tony Pujol said.
“We’ll go there to win,’’ North Alabama sophomore guard Jamari Blackmon said. “When you get a chance to go to a place like Indiana, it’s just something you dream about. It’s special, and we’ve been looking forward to it. And we’ll go there and play as hard as we can. The way we play, it’s a great opportunity for us to do something really special.’’
North Alabama's Emanuel Littles is looking forward to his first trip to Assembly Hall. (USA TODAY)
Not just another November game
For Indiana fans, the North Alabama name doesn’t really resonate for any reason. It’s just one of seven November nonconference games at Assembly Hall against unimpressive competition, at least from a recognition standpoint.
Even the most fanatic of IU fans couldn’t tell you a single starter on any of those seven teams.
To Hoosiers fans, they’re all kind of the same, and they sort of are. In the kenpom.com national rankings, six of the seven November opponents are ranked 200 or worse of the 353 Division I teams, which continues to grow because of all those TV dollars.
For instance, Indiana’s first four opponents — Western Illinois, Portland State, North Alabama and Troy — are all ranked about the same, and in the bottom 20 percent or so in the country. They are ranked, in order, 298, 277, 286, and 274.
That’s a number that doesn’t matter one bit to the North Alabama guys. Nor does the point spread. Indiana was favored by about 20 points the first two games and won by 33 and 11. They’ll likely be favored by about the same number against North Alabama.
So what, they say.
“A lot of people get scared of teams just because of their names, but it doesn’t bother us,’’ sophomore forward Emanuel Littles said. “They dress up just like you do, so we’ll just go out and play.’’
Blackmon, North Alabama’s steady guard who was the ASUN Conference Freshman of the Year a season ago, is the only guy on the North Alabama roster who has a bit of an Indiana connection. He played at well known football power Hoover High School just outside of Birmingham, but he had a friend who was an Indiana fan, and they watched a lot of IU games together.
“When I was like 12 I think, I got to go to a game there and watch them play,’’ Blackmon said after Sunday’s win, where he had nine assists and just one turnover. "I got to meet Victor Oladipo after the game, and it was so cool.
“I know Indiana has a great history, and I’m very excited to play there. I know the fans are crazy, and I’m really looking forward to that. But our team does a really good job of blocking out the noise.’’
The only Midwesterner on the North Alabama roster is sophomore guard Christian Agnew, who’s from Detroit. But he was honest afterward on Sunday, saying he doesn’t know about Indiana basketball at all.
“I don’t know much, and I’m keeping it one hundred, you know,’’ Agnew said. “We’re very excited and very grateful to have this kind of opportunity. Because of the way we play, I think we’re going to play solid and we’re going to give them a fight.’’
North Alabama coach Tony Pujol has a lot of Division I experience as an assistant to Anthony Grant. (USA TODAY)
Hop on the bus to Indiana
North Alabama made the move to Division I last year, and they hired Tony Pujol, a longtime assistant to Anthony Grant at VCU and later Alabama. (Grant, ironically, replaced Archie Miller at Dayton when he was hired at Indiana.) The Lions are in the ASUN Conference — the Atlantic Sun for the old-timers — and should be a top-four team in that league.
They play South Carolina, Indiana and Florida State this year, and those guarantee check from the big boys help pay for the program.
They opened the season at South Carolina, but lost 77-55, struggling to shoot, missing all 12 of their 3-point attempts in the first half. (They made 10 on Sunday). It was a great learning experience for Pujol’s young team.
“Our guys learned a very valauabld lesson there. They learned that they can’t succumb to frustration,’’ Pujol said. “It was a two-possession game in the second half, but because we weren’t shooting the ball very well, we let that affect what we were doing on the defensive end of the floor.
“Our job now is to grow from that. Indiana is going to be a tremendous test in that area. Our guys know they will have to execute on a very high level.’’
Pujol and Miller know each other a bit. They coached against each other in 2016 when Alabama played Dayton, and thought this game would be good for both of them.
“It’s a bucket list thing for our kids, a tremendous honor to for us to be able to go up there to Bloomington and be allowed to compete against a team like Indiana,’’ Pujol said. “One thing I know for us, the coaching up there is really really good. We faced them when I was at Alabama and they were at Dayton, and we know exactly what they’re about. He’s great at preparing his team, and we’ll have to be on our P’s and Q’s to compete with them.’’
North Alabama made a 6-hour bus ride to Bloomington on Sunday night so they can practice Monday at Assembly Hall. They’ll also get a shootaround in on Tuesday, so they’ll be as well prepared as they can for Tuesday night’s game.
They’ll give Indiana a challenge in handling the ball. North Alabama uses a fullcourt press for 40 minutes and works hard at forcing turnovers. They forced 20 turnovers at South Carolina, and had 27 on Sunday against Carver.
They also like to shoot the 3, which was a problem for Indiana Saturday against Portland State, whose two starting guards each made four 3-pointers.
“With the team we have, we feel like we can play with the big boys, the high majors, the big names,’’ Littles said. “To be able to play them, it puts it back on us to go do something special.’’
For Indiana, it might just be another game.
For North Alabama’s players, it’s a special lifetime moment.
