TideIllustrated – Film study: Alabama freshman guard Rylan Griffen is a road warrior

Alabama’s No. 3 basketball picked up a narrow 77-69 road win over Auburn on Saturday, a hotly contested showdown between two of the sport’s top coaches.

The Crimson Tide knew how to mix styles of play. Early on, the game was rough with the Tigers’ defensive scheme built around star freshman wing Brandon Miller. As the game wore on, Alabama continued to pick up their pace with an early attack in the latter part of the second half.

“We didn’t do a great job in the first half with some things, I felt like some guys weren’t as locked in defensively,” head coach Nate Oats said after the match. victoire. “I think we did a much better job there in the last 10 minutes of the game.”

Let’s dive into some of the film from its Saturday release and a set of Alabama in Wednesday’s blowout win over Florida.

Alabama freshman guard Rylan Griffen recorded a team-high 16 points on 5-of-7 shooting from the floor in 20 minutes of game action. The 6-foot-5 guard is the player a coach’s favorite due to his competitive nature, outside shooting, blue-collar hustle plays, and his ability to seamlessly fit into any role no questions asked.

Griffen has been a model of consistency in high-pressure road environments. Since the schedule changed, he’s averaging 10.8 points on 58 percent (15 of 26) shooting from beyond the arc in six road games.

On that possession, Noah Clowney handles the ball off the top of the key while Miller functions as a screen for Griffen. This is a common move in Alabama’s offense to create defensive lapses on switches given the severity of Miller’s shots.

That’s what’s happening on this 3-point Griffen pointer. When he moves up the key, Auburn’s Chris Moore is late to recognize the switch, allowing Griffen some wiggle room on the spot-up jumper.

Here, Auburn’s offense is five out with Johni Broome looking to set up a high ball screen for Wendell Green Jr., who finished with a game-high 24 runs. Despite being caught in Broome’s screen, Griffen sprints and does a late contest from behind to block Green’s pull-up 3.

At this point in the game, the two teams were trading buckets. Just 45 seconds before that block, Green knocked down his own 3-pointer to take his last lead of the game. From there, Alabama controlled the momentum on the road.

On the next possession, Griffen fed Green over to the right and immediately crossed over to the left before putting a 3 over the break.

Looking to freeze the game heading into the final minute, Griffen used a false header to get KD Johnson off the ground, allowing him to blow for the emphatic one-handed slam.

Alabama has a very fluid offense with lots of off-ball movement and counters off their initial actions. Here’s a look at how the Crimson Tide used that to their advantage in their 97-69 win over Florida.

Here, Jahvon Quinerly orchestrates the offense as Alabama settles into “Horns” – an alliance where two players place ball screens on both sides of the ball handler with one rolling and the other popping. Miller screens, Charles Bediako appears and swings it to Nimari Burnett on the opposite wing. Sears then runs on a staggered screen, forcing the defense to rush before taking him to the edge for a left-handed lay-up in the dying seconds of the first half.