Bama is dealing with a sizable issue.(INSIDER)

Along with shaking John Wooden's hand and seeing your team beat Duke, there is another common basketball fantasy: big guys all around. We love size in this game. The taller the better. There are lots of 6-11 projects but none who stand 5-9.

In reality, though, a team can have too much size, just as a fellow can eat too many Krispy Kremes. That is Alabama coach Mark Gottfried's predicament. Of his four best players, three are big: center Jermareo Davidson and power forwards Chuck Davis and Richard Hendrix. So now Gottfried wonders whether it makes sense to play them all at once.

"We'll get into practice, experiment with a few things, maybe zone a bit more," he says. "At some point, you've got to get your best players on the floor."

Imagine a Crimson Tide lineup with Davidson, 6-10, at center; Hendrix and Davis, both 6-8, at forward; and 6-7 Jean Felix and 6-2 Ronald Steele at guard. That's not exactly a Sampson-Olajuwon set of towers, but it would change how Alabama operates.

The Tide would have employed a fairly typical rotation had star 6-6 forward Kennedy Winston not turned pro early. The Tide also lost three other perimeter players: Junior college recruit Ray George did not gain eligibility, and Glenn Miles and Albert Weber transferred.

Felix and freshman Alonzo Gee are the only genuine wings. So even if Gottfried wants to play a conventional lineup, it'll be hard to do it full time.

He has thought about which of his big men might be most comfortable away from the goal; he thinks it's Davidson. Hendrix, a muscular freshman who was a McDonald's All-American, perceives himself as an NBA prospect and might welcome the opportunity to develop his outside game.