Opening Statement…
“It was definitely not one of our better wins, but sometimes, when you’re competing for a league championship, you’ve gotta go on the road and win game that aren’t pretty – ugly. I thought we had some guys step up. It’s back-to-back games Nimari’s played really well for us. Rylan shot the ball really well tonight. It’s good to see some guys step up. I think JQ created some really good offense for us in the second half. Our defense was nowhere close to where we’d like it to be, but I thought late in the game, we got some stops when we needed to. Clowney really stepped up for us big there late. You’ve gotta give them a lot of credit. We kind of pounded them on the glass the first time we played them, but this time, we only had four O boards for the entire game. I told our guys, too, we’re gonna hurt teams one way in one game, and they’re gonna make a huge point of emphasis to stop it the second time we play them. And we’ve gotta do a better job still figuring out a way to make that a strength of ours. Not our best performance, but at this point, when you play a team a second time and it’s on the road, those are hard ones to get. We’re at 10-0, and we’ve got a tough week ahead. Shoot, we’ve got a tough couple weeks ahead of us, to be honest with you.”
Benny’s Breakdown: Inhale. Exhale. Alabama survived another scare in Baton Rouge even though it tried its best to give the game away in the second half. The Crimson Tide didn’t record a basket in the last 7:20 of the game. After shooting 53% from the field in the first half, Alabama shot a cold 35% in the final 20 minutes. Thankfully a hot Mark Sears and Rylan Griffen were able to shoot Alabama out of its shooting woes at times and help it to its 10th win in conference play this season.
On the offensive value Noah Clowney has with his ability to move in space…
“I told him when he got here that I think the hardest bigs to guard in pick-and-roll are the ones that can roll, finish at the rim, pop, make a three, play in the short roll and handle the ball. And I think he does all of those really well, especially now that he’s making three. When you don’t know whether he’s gonna pop or roll, it’s a lot harder to guard. We had him on the one lob that he finished. He hit two threes. He can pop, get into a toss game, pop again. He can pop, get into a toss game, roll on the second one. He puts a lot of pressure on a defense. He’s been great for us. I thought he was really good defensively. But he was good for us on offense for a stretch there, too, tonight.”
Benny’s Breakdown: Hey, remember when Noah Clowney missed 21 straight 3-pointers? Yeah, me neither. Now Clowney’s 2-for-4 performance from behind the arc isn’t groundbreaking as he came into Saturday shooting 27% from deep, but it’s when he’s nailing these baskets that is impressive. With LSU trimming Alabama's lead down to six points with 11:54 left in the half, Clowney found himself open and drained it from range. The basket extended the Alabama lead to nine which proved to be the dagger for the Tigers.
On being able to win the game on the defensive end late…
“It was great because I didn’t think the first 30 minutes we were that good on the defensive end. Our offense was flowing pretty good for a while there, and then, yeah, it hit a wall there late in the game. I’ve gotta look at our lineups late in game. We probably had the wrong guys in, to be honest with you. Some of that’s on me as the coach. They’re trying to get their guys rest and put guys in. But at this point, it’s about winning, and you’ve gotta put guys on the floor that are producing and maybe use a timeout to rest them. But yeah, it was ugly basketball there for a while, but I was proud of the way our guys played on the defensive end. They came up with some tough plays, got some tough rebounds. That was Clowney in the middle of that, the big chase-down block. He had the save. He had some really big plays on the defensive end. But yeah, we’re gonna have to win some games on the defensive end. It’d be nice if we were really locked in on defense the whole game and then the offense just dictated the scoring margin on a win. But we found a way to win a tough road game. This team’s a lot better than what their record is. They’re gonna beat some teams here in the second half of league (play) that people don’t expect them to beat.”
Benny’s Breakdown: While the offense hasn’t been as consistent as Clowney would want, one aspect of his game that hasn’t faltered is his defense. The freshman finished with six rebounds, three blocks and a steal in the win. Once again he was in line for another hard hat award, but Brandon Miller’s double-double of 11 points and 10 rebounds sealed it for the Tennessee native. Oats’ remarks on defense winning tight games is crucial for an Alabama team that hasn’t needed to find ways to win very often. However, in the second half, it held LSU to a 34.6 shooting percentage in the second half. The Crimson Tide also found a way to slow down Derek Fountain who tallied just eight points after scoring 18 in the first half.
On the significance of Nimari Burnett, Rylan Griffen in the last two games…
“It’s been huge. We’ve needed scoring. Teams are gonna try to take Brandon and Mark out. They’ve been our leading scorers on the year, and we need somebody else to make some shots and those two guys are proven shot-makers that stepping up and making shots in games now. So I’m super happy for both of them. They’re great kids. Both of them just want to team to do well. An instance tonight where we’re making a sub, we needed to get somebody in and I wasn’t quite sure who to put him in for. I put him in for Quinerly, and Rylan said, ‘No, no, no, no. Coach, we’ve gotta leave JQ in. He’s creating offense for everybody. Take me out, leave JQ in.’ And sure enough, JQ comes downhill off the next ball screen, sprays it out, Sears hit a three and Rylan said, ‘I told you, Coach.’ He’s over there on the bench. I think Rylan just cares about the team. Nimari’s got that same kind of mindset. It’s good for guys like that that can make shots that are making shots to also just be big team guys.”
Benny’s Breakdown: With Miller struggling to find his rhythm from the field, Alabama turned to its bench again to help kick the offense into gear. Griffen has found his game over the past few games highlighted by his 14 points which included his unconscious form from deep, going 4-for-5 from behind the arc. Along with Griffen, Oats found production from Nimari Burnett who scored 13 points making it back-to-back games where he has tallied double-digits in points. The boost off of the bench was huge and is becoming an aspect it will need to rely on with eight games left of the season."
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