Alabama Basketball's Freshmen are as Good as Advertised

The four freshmen who saw action in the season opener against Longwood scored 48 of the team's 72 points.

Author:
Joey Blackwell
Publish date:
Nov 8, 2022 7:00 AM EST

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Alabama Crimson Tide

On Monday night inside Coleman Coliseum, Alabama basketball confirmed what many fans already knew heading into the season: this freshman class is quite impressive.

After the Crimson Tide was able to wrangle in the No. 3 recruiting class in the nation for 2022, the second-highest in program history. The class put Alabama among the ranks of traditional powerhouses like Kansas, Kentucky, UCLA and North Carolina — certainly a huge leap for the program.

However, Alabama fans were forced to wait until Monday to see the class in action on the hardwood for the first time. In short, the four freshmen from the class appeared to be as good — if not better — than even head coach Nate Oats had stated over the summer.

And let's be frank here: Oats didn't exactly make any strides to undersell his incoming players this offseason.

Over the entirety of the game, the Crimson Tide featured freshmen throughout its 75-54 win over the Longwood Lancers. At the opening tipoff, two freshmen in forwards Brandon Miller and Noah Clowney were starters on the court. Alongside them throughout a decent portion of the game were guards Jaden Bradley and Rylan Griffen.

Of Alabama's 72 points, freshmen accounted for 48 of them. Of the team's impressive 67 rebounds, freshmen managed 32.

Miller was the highlight of the Crimson Tide freshmen, recording 14 points and 13 rebounds on the evening for a double-double in his first career college basketball game. He finished the game with 10 of his rebounds coming on the defensive end of the court, and managed a plus/minus of +27 as the final buzzer sounded.

Rather than seem impressed, Oats expected nothing less from his 2022 McDonald's All-American.

“Some people had us as the third-ranked class in the country and I think it’s showing,” Oats said. “Brandon’s obviously really talented. He had 14 and 13, but shoot — he didn’t make a 3 and he can actually shoot the ball really well. He’ll have a lot better nights than he had tonight."

And to think that Miller began his night with nerves ahead of his first game.

“I can’t lie, I was a bit nervous,” Miller smiled. “But after a while, I came up with the pieces. I had a great time with my team. I thought we played really hard, just crashed the defensive glass and just got out and run. Just really had fun and happy to get a win.”

Tied with Miller in points on the night was Griffen, who also managed 14 through 27 minutes on the court. While he only managed two rebounds, Griffen placed second on the team in plus/minus with a +23 — just four points shy of team-leader Miller.

Griffen played off of the bench in the game rather than starting. While some freshmen with the talent level of Griffen might take that as a slight, Griffen took it in stride and committed to his bench role.

"[College basketball is] more physical, but that's why at Alabama there's strength coach [Charlie] Henry — all summer long, all fall just building my body up to be able to take the contact," Griffen said. "I just wanted to be that spark off the bench. Coach Oats told me he needed me to be the spark off the bench today and bring energy off the bench and so that's what I tried to do.

"I'm glad we got the win, but we'll celebrate this until 12 tonight but we're back at it tomorrow focusing on Friday's game."

Alabama Crimson Tide guard Rylan Griffen (3) jumps to shoot as Longwood Lancers forward Jesper Granlund (35) attempts to block him at Coleman Coliseum Monday, Nov. 7, 2022, in the season opening game — Will McLelland-USA TODAY NETWORK

From the floor, Griffen made 5-of-13 shots from the floor and was just one of three Alabama players to hit a 3-pointer on the night. Along with shooting 3-of-5 from the free-throw line, Griffen's 14 points were a solid contribution to the Crimson Tide's success.

And according to Oats, Monday night was just a taste of what Griffen brings to the table for Alabama.

“Rylan Griffen just has no fear," Oats said. "He comes in and he’s going to make shots at a way higher clip than he did tonight, but he plays hard and gets the O-boards. Scored 14 points. We kind of needed a boost from him in the first half and he kinda gave it."

Bradley rounded out the three double-digits scorers among the freshmen, finishing the game with 11 points and six rebounds. He also recorded a steal during his 22 minutes on the hardwood.

Oats had a lot of comments similar to those of Griffen for Bradley, chiefly regarding his grit.

“Jaden Bradley showed why we liked him," Oats said. "He’s tough, gritty, had some tough finishes on offense but really guards, kind of knows how to play the game. You kind of saw we went with him more in the second half when we needed to get some stops."

The final freshman who saw frequent playing time against the Lancers was Noah Clowney, who was all over the court on Monday night. While he recorded the lowest points total of the freshmen with 9, Clowney managed 11 rebounds and two blocks. Nine of his 11 rebounds were on the defensive side of the court, making him a key contributor to Alabama's 67-38 out-rebounding of Longwood.

With Clowney, Oats couldn't be happier outside of a couple of his singular missed free throw.

“Clowney’s starting," Oats said. "We obviously expect a lot out of him. He had double-digit rebounds. We almost put all four freshmen in double-digit scoring, which if Clowney makes his free-throw we've got four freshmen in double-digit scoring. I was happy with the freshman class. They’re going to play a lot for us this year.”

But Clowney doesn't just have the support of his head coach.

"I say he's the X-factor," Griffen said of Clowney. "He does all the little things: he blocks shots, he rebounds, he hits 3s — when you got people like Brandon Miller on your team, you need people like Noah Clowney to do all the little stuff on defense [and] on offense, too. He's just our X-factor, I feel like."

There was certainly a lot of excitement surrounding Alabama's freshmen class heading into the 2022-23 season, and for good reason. After the departure of talented players like Jaden Shackelford and JD Davison, the anticipation for what Oats and the Crimson Tide had waiting in the wings never ceased to stop growing over the summer and into the early months of fall.

There's certainly a whole lot of basketball left to be played. After all, Monday's game was still the season opener. Let's take a moment to realize that all four of the freshmen combined for 48 total points and yet only two 3-pointers between the lot of them. If they can manage to get shots to start falling, then the sky could potentially be the limit for this Alabama basketball team.

And through the team's first game at least, all four of them appear to be as good as advertised.