Full-Court Press: Takeaways from Alabama Basketball at LSU
BATON ROUGE, La. — The No. 4 Alabama Crimson Tide completed a season sweep of LSU on Saturday afternoon, defeating the Tigers 79-69 in a much uglier game than their first meeting.
While it wasn't a 40-point win, Alabama still walked away with another road victory and a 10-0 SEC record. Here are some of my takeaways from the game:
1. Burnett and Griffen have emerged as major contributors.
Nimari Burnett followed up his strong performance on Tuesday with another stellar game Saturday, scoring 13 points in the first half and shooting 3-for-7 from three.
It's the first time Burnett has had back-to-back double-figure scoring games in an Alabama uniform. Before the wrist surgery that held him out from Dec. 10 to Jan. 18, Burnett was shooting 34 percent from beyond the arc. Now that he's settled back into his role, he has made seven of his 17 attempts from downtown in the past two games.
Burnett's confidence has been the biggest thing that's stuck out to me about his play, as even before the injury he wasn't pulling up as frequently or with as much confidence. Now, any time Burnett gets space he's taking a shot, and he's even started attacking the basket with some power, looking comfortable on his knee that required ACL surgery over a year ago.
Then there's Rylan Griffen, who I've continually talked about on this series and has been garnering himself a bigger role for weeks on end.
Griffen posted 14 points off the bench on an astounding 4-for-5 shooting day from distance. After a slower shooting start to the season, he is up to 40 percent shooting from 3-point land in SEC play, and like Burnett, has also shown confidence driving to the rim and attempting to create for himself.
In a game where Brandon Miller was less-than-stellar, having guys like Burnett and Griffen that can come in off the bench and be reliable options on offense is huge for Alabama, especially as the meat of the SEC schedule approaches. There will be games where teams find ways to slow Miller down, but when the Crimson Tide has this many threats from outside it raises its ceiling more than may thought possible.
2. Sears and Clowney have broken out of their shooting slumps.
It took a while, but Mark Sears finally got going again from three. After a stretch where Sears made just five of nearly 30 attempts over the course of a few weeks, he came back Saturday to make his first three shots from deep en route to an 13-point performance.
Sears started the season blistering hot from three, shooting at a clip above 40 percent until about halfway through January. His slump dropped him down to just above 37 percent, which is nothing to slouch at, but still worse than where he started.
Against LSU, though, he fired off shots with confidence once he stepped in and hit his first one. Regaining confidence is one of the most important things for shooters breaking out of slumps, and it appears that Sears found his and has no problem pulling up from his favorite spots.
Noah Clowney went through an even worse slump than Sears, missing an infamous 21 straight threes over the course of the same few weeks. He broke that missing streak against Vanderbilt on Tuesday, and followed it up with two makes in four attempts against LSU.
When Clowney is hitting threes, it opens up his offensive versatility tremendously. Oats commented in his postgame press conference how Clowney can give defenses trouble on ball screens, being able to roll to the basket and finish dunks, pop and hit threes, and everything in between with his long frame and athletic ability.
Like I mentioned in the last section, there will be nights when Miller can't score 20 or 25, and it's important for guys like Clowney and Sears to be able and ready to contribute when their number is called, much like they were on Saturday.
3. Defense showed up when it needed to most.
Oats was vocal in his postgame press conference about how his wasn't particularly pleased with the effort on the defensive end for much of the game, and Burnett echoed that same sentiment.
Alabama held LSU to just 31 percent shooting from the floor, but showed laziness in rotations in the first half specifically leading to open threes as well as cheap fouls that allowed the Tigers to live off he free throw line to keep them in the game.
In the second half, Alabama hit a three to go up 75-63 going into the under-8 media timeout. From that point on, the Crimson Tide didn't make another shot from the field in the game. The offense hit a wall, and Alabama couldn't get anything going.
Instead of folding though, the defense stepped up and played harder than it had at any point in the game, holding LSU to just six points over the final seven minutes even in the midst of a horrific scoring drought. When it would be easy to let the lack of offensive rhythm effect defensive effort, Alabama locked in even more and guarded hard enough to still come away with a double-digit win.
Not every win is going to be a blowout, especially on the road, but championship-level teams have the ability to do what is necessary to come away with a victory even when not playing their best, and that's what Alabama did down the stretch in Baton Rouge.
4. A few more things...
- LSU outrebounded Alabama by five, and had nine more offensive rebounds than the Crimson Tide. That kind of effort on the glass has to improve with dominant bigs like Florida's Colin Castleton and Auburn's Johni Broome next on the schedule.
- Jahvon Quinerly continues to be an excellent facilitator off the bench. He dished out six assists and played 26 minutes, essentially a starter's role.
- Once again, Bediako was excellent in the pick-and-roll game and finished lobs with much more power than he had in recent weeks. He only played 18 minutes but scored eight points in that frame.
- Alabama has now shot over 45 percent from three in back-to-back games.
See also:
Alabama Basketball's Bench Continues to Inspire Offensive Production
No. 4 Alabama Used Defense Down the Stretch to Extinguish LSU
