Instant Analysis from Alabama women's basketball's 92-56 win over Queens

For BamaCentral.com, I'm Theo Fernandez with an instant analysis from Alabama women's basketball's 92-56 win over Queens. This was the debut of Pauline Love, and the Pauline Love era is off to a great start. She's 1-0 as Alabama head coach. That's the most important thing, obviously, but I also think that in a game like this where the final score was likely never going to be close, We saw some things that paint an optimistic picture of what her tenure could be like here. First of all, there was a lot of honesty out of her in the post-game press conference, right? She talked right away about how, yeah, like Alabama is going to be the smallest team in the SEC. We know there's a lack of resources around the program. We know that everything's going to be a struggle here. She was very open about it, like acknowledged it, and then also acknowledged that, you know what, You know what, I think our bigs played. Pretty well in this game, Alabama absolutely dominated on the glass. It was, you know, in the first half alone, 29-18 on the boards in Alabama's favor. You get a lot of second chance points, which it's going to be hard to replicate in these bigger games against the SEC schools, many of them, all of them, which will be smaller then, but you can only control so much right now and going out and actually getting the boards and getting reps on the offensive glass and turning it into second chance points is all you can do. Alabama very efficient getting to the line today. And then the name that you guys all want to hear about is Ace Austin, right? Ace Austin, 15 points, seven boards. She, I believe, was three of eight from beyond the arc on the day. Which let me say, there were... Sarr hit two threes that, you know, were after a whistle for a foul and were waved off. But Aitsos is going to be a lethal shooter, right? We know this. We know that, you know, much of Alabama's success this year will come down to her ability to have a hot shooting night, right? And she can shoot Alabama into games that the Crimson Tide probably wouldn't hang around in otherwise. But you look at the roster and you can tell it's definitely a lot more than just her. I was really impressed by NC State transfer, or Boston College transfer, apologies, Myra Anderson. Anderson finished with 14 points. We got to speak to her postgame. She just, you know, very optimistic, right? Crimson colored glasses after her debut, and it went exactly how you'd want it to, right? She was a big-time player for Boston College and the ACC last year, and it certainly seems like she will have a big role on this team. All in all, you had five players scoring double figures. You had another with eight, another with six. You had a lot of players getting involved. Like I said, Ace Austin, you know, One of the smallest players on the court, still able to grab seven boards. So I saw a lot that I liked on the court. And then, of course, just the symbolic meaning of Pauline Love getting her first SEC win. You could tell how much it meant to her talking to her postgame. She got presented after the game with a commemorative ball from Athletic Director Greg Byrne. You could just see it was an emotional day for everybody. Ultimately, I am standing in an empty Coleman Coliseum. It wasn't all that much more full when the game was going on. It's going to be an uphill battle to get fans to show up, to get fans to buy into the program. And that's another thing that Coach Love is open about and understands that there's work to do. And it all starts with the team being very good on the basketball court, right? I've sat here in this arena and witnessed some great women's basketball atmospheres. I asked Coach Love about it, and she brought up. The LSU upset win Alabama had here just a couple seasons ago. So we know that it is possible to get fans to buy into this program. The next few months will determine how much that happens this year. We'll have sporadic coverage of Alabama women's basketball here on Bama Central, especially as we get into the SEC slate, as we approach the postseason. But I'm very glad to have witnessed a part of history, right? The Pauline Love era is underway.