TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Despite dealing with a nagging back injury for a large portion of Southeastern Conference play, University of Alabama senior wing Herb Jones took home the league's Player of the Year, Defensive Player of the Year and All-SEC First-Team honors on Tuesday.
"I had no idea I was in the running for Player of the Year," Jones told the media via Zoom on Wednesday. "I just wanted to get the Defensive Player of the Year Award. There were a lot of critics saying my offensive game was bad, like I couldn't contribute on the offensive end. I just kept working. My teammates and coaches just kept pouring a lot of confidence in me when I didn't even have confidence in myself and it paid off this year."
Jones is only the fourth-leading scoring on the Crimson Tide at 10.9 points but the rest of his on-court contributions speak volumes. He leads Alabama in rebounds (6.1), assists (3.1), blocks (1.0) and steals (1.7).
The Greensboro, Ala. native is also shooting 45.1 percent from the field and 45.5 percent from 3-point range on the season.
Despite suffering that aforementioned back injury on Jan. 23 versus Mississippi State, Jones never missed a single game. More recently, he poured in 10 points on 4 of 8 shooting and added six rebounds, four assists, one block and steal in the regular-season finale last Saturday versus Georgia.
Heading into the SEC tournament in Nashville on Friday, where No. 6 Alabama is set to play at 11 a.m (CT) against either Kentucky or Mississippi State, Jones said he is nearing full health, which is a scary thought for the rest of the league.
"I feel like I'm back to playing at 100 percent," Jones said. "My body feels great right now so I'm ready to play some games."
Jones isn't the only Crimson Tide player that has dealt with injuries throughout this historic season that saw Alabama capture its ninth SEC regular-season title.
Back on Jan. 12, forward Jordan Bruner tore his meniscus and missed over a month of action and then he had a setback in his rehab that forced him to have surgery on his opposite knee, also forward James Rojas and guard Jahvon Quinerly missed time due to undisclosed medical conditions and forward Juwan Gary missed multiple games to a dislocated shoulder.
"That section of the season was tough," Alabama coach Nate Oats said. "We managed to get through that without too many losses, which speaks to our depth this year as opposed to last year... We had certain guys step up like [John] Petty and [Jaden] Shackelford to get us through that stretch."
After missing nine games, Bruner is still easing his way back, averaging 4.8 points and 18 minutes in his last five outings. His presence is more felt on the defensive end where he is totaling 1.4 steals and 1.1 blocks each time out.
Overall, Oats believes the health of his team could have the Crimson Tide making more noise deep into the month of March.
"Bruner still doesn't look like he's moving 100 percent but he has such a high IQ that impacts the game on so many levels than just his athleticism and he can still help us," Oats said. "But outside of Bruner, I feel like we are pretty healthy right now and even Bruner is healthy enough to help us. Part of winning conference championships is getting to March fairly healthy and I feel like we have been fortunate enough to do that right now. Clarke [Holter] is one of, if not, the best trainer in the country. He does a great job.
"You wanna be peaking come March and now is the time for that. In order to do that, you need to be healthy and have guys practicing and we have had that. We have had the full team practicing and we've got everybody fairly healthy enough.
"I like where we are at right now."
The Link LonkMarch 11, 2021 at 03:06AM
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Herb Jones, No. 6 Alabama Basketball Nearing Full Health Entering SEC Tournament - Bama Maven
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