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

No. 3 Alabama basketball pulled out a narrow 77-69 road victory over Auburn on Saturday, a highly-contested showdown between two of the best coaches in the sport.

The Crimson Tide was able to mix styles of play. Early on, the game was rugged with the Tigers’ defensive scheme built around containing star freshman wing Brandon Miller. As the game progressed, Alabama continued to pick up its tempo with early offense into the latter part of the second half.

“We didn’t do a great job in the first half with some stuff, I felt like some guys weren’t as locked in on the defensive end,” head coach Nate Oats said following the win. “I thought we did a much better job there in the last 10 minutes of the game.”

Let’s dive into some of the film from his outing on Saturday and a set from 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 a coach’s favorite player due to his competitive nature, outside shooting, blue-collar hustle plays and his ability to seamlessly fit into any role with no questions asked.

Griffen has been a model for consistency in high-pressure road environments. Since the calendar turned, he is averaging 10.8 points on 58% shooting (15 of 26) from beyond the arc in six road games.

On this possession, Noah Clowney is handling the ball from atop of the key while Miller is functioning as a screener for Griffen. This is a common action within Alabama’s offense to create defensive lapses on switches given Miller’s shooting gravity.

That’s what happens on this Griffen 3-pointer. When he relocates to the top of the key, Auburn’s Chris Moore is late to recognize the switch, allowing Griffen to have breathing room on the spot-up jumper.

Here, Auburn’s offense is five-out with Johni Broome looking to set a high-ball screen for Wendell Green Jr., who finished with a game-high 24 points. Despite getting caught up in Broome’s screen, Griffen sprints out and makes 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 this block, Green knocked down a 3-pointer of his own to take its final lead of the game. From here on, Alabama controlled the momentum on the road.

On the next possession, Griffen got Green shifting right, and immediately crossed back left before putting up an above-the-break 3.

Looking to ice the game nearing the final minute, Griffen used a head fake to get KD Johnson in the air, allowing him to blow by for the emphatic one-handed slam.

Alabama has a very free-flowing offense with plenty of off-ball movement and counters out of their initial actions. Here's a look at how the Crimson Tide used that to its advantage during its 97-69 win over Florida.

Here, Jahvon Quinerly orchestrates the offense while Alabama sets up in “Horns” – an alliance where two players set ball screens on both sides of the ball-handler with one rolling and the other popping. Miller screens, Charles Bediako pops and swings it to Nimari Burnett on the opposite wing. Sears then runs off a stagger screen, causing the defense to scramble before he takes it to the rim for a left-handed layup in the final seconds of the first half.