Alabama SI Cover Tournament: Love'em Or Hate'em ... Latrell Sprewell vs. Rule Tide

Help BamaCentral determine which Alabama Sports Illustrated cover is the best, and a Top 25 list

Alabama has sports other than football, and one of its former basketball players graced the cover on June 7, 1999. 

However, it has a tough matchup, squaring off against one of Nick Saban's national championships, and the blowout win over Notre Dame. 

BamaCentral is holding a 48-field single-elimination tournament to determine the best Alabama Sports Illustrated cover.

Vote on Twitter (@BamaCentral) or Facebook (@AlabamaonSI). The voting goes 24 hours for each matchup and the result added to the original post on BamaCentral.

First round 

Nick Saban Regional

Game 3: Love'em or Hate'em ... Latrell Sprewell vs. Rule Tide

Love'em or Hate'em ... 

Latrell Sprewell and the Knicks are back in a big way 

Story headline: Knick of Time 

Subhead: Fresh blood may be fueling New York's postseason roll, but when the Knicks need a basket, they still call on old reliable, Patrick Ewing 

Excerpt (by Jackie MacMillan): "It's all about fighting through adversity, and that's something we've done all year," Sprewell says. "I've been through a lot the
last couple of years. It kind of prepared me for what we're going
through now."

Even when Sprewell's unwillingness to pass was a problem, his
most ardent foes acknowledged that he gave the team an
electricity that didn't exist when New York was dumping the ball
into a laboring Ewing on the block. Sprewell's presence proved
to be, at times, overwhelming for players like Houston, who
clearly deferred to his infamous backcourtmate when the two were
on the floor together. Houston, the son of a coach, was the
anti-Spree: controlled, conservative, respectful of the game.
Choking a coach? Unimaginable. Van Gundy assured Houston that he
could thrive with Sprewell on the floor, but that was a
realization Houston had to come to on his own.

"The thing about Spree is, he's going to come in and play his
game, and he's not going to change for anybody or any situation,"
says Houston. "The way I've always played was not to force
things. I let the game come to me. But my role is to put the ball
in the hole, and I need the ball to make that happen, so I
stopped waiting for someone to give it to me. I became more
selfish in an unselfish way."

By the time Ewing returned from his Achilles injury, on May 8,
Sprewell and Houston were accentuating each other's strengths
instead of exposing each other's weaknesses. 

Rule Tide 

Alabama Dynasty Reborn

Story headline: Heir Force

Subhead: Alabama turned what was supposed to be a defensive showdown into an offensive beatdown, and by the second half the only competition remaining was between the school's old coach and it's current one

Excerpt (by Tim Layden): Great things can happen in a place like Tuscaloosa, Ala., where past glory is served with every meal and there is an eternal belief, even during the most uncertain times, that each autumn will bring rebirth. It takes the right coach. It takes the right time.

So it was on Monday night, in a professional football stadium on a lonely tract of land hard by the endless highways of South Florida that Alabama, under coach Nick Saban, returned indelibly not just to the national championship, but also to a place high above the sport itself. The Crimson Tide punished top-ranked Notre Dame 42--14, turning one of college football's most anticipated title games into a punch line, and sending once-euphoric Fighting Irish fans who had sought completion of their own renaissance, walking, humbled, into the tropical darkness.

The championship was Alabama's third in four years, the first such run since Nebraska in 1994, '95 and '97 (the third of which was shared by Michigan). "There's a Sports Illustrated cover hanging in my room — because I'm on it — from 2010," said Alabama senior center Barrett Jones after the game, as "Sweet Home Alabama" filled the air. "It says, 'Dynasty. Can Anyone Stop Alabama?' I'll never forget looking at that thing and wondering if we really could be a dynasty. Three out of four. I'm no dynasty expert, but that seems like a dynasty to me."

Result

Rule Tide def. Love'em or Hate'em,  77.4-22.6 percent