LOS ANGELES — Alabama basketball assistant coach Preston Murphy first saw Latrell Wrightsell Jr. play by accident.
Murphy wasn't on a recruiting trip. He wasn't even in the gym to watch Wrightsell. Then a Creighton assistant coach, Murphy was there to cheer on his son. Wrightsell's AAU team was playing first, though. So Murphy, while waiting for his son's game to start, got his first glimpse of Wrightsell as a middle schooler in Nebraska.
"And his team won," Murphy told The Tuscaloosa News. "He was very tough, competitive, doing a lot of winning things."
Fast forward almost a decade, and that hasn't changed. Murphy has a front-row seat now as one of Wrightsell's coaches at Alabama. Murphy has watched as Wrightsell has become one of the most efficient players in the country and one of the best shooters for the Crimson Tide, a Sweet 16 team in the NCAA Tournament.
In one season, Wrightsell has become arguably Alabama's most important player outside of Mark Sears. If Sears is the motor of the team, Wrightsell is the x-factor.
It's why Wrightsell's availability for the UNC game in the Sweet 16 on Thursday (8:40 p.m. CT approximately, CBS) could determine whether Alabama makes its first Elite Eight since 2004.
"He's very important," guard Rylan Griffen said. "It just feels better when he's on the court. You feel a little more confident."
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Wrightsell's value can be measured in tangible and intangible ways. Let's start with the tangible. The analytics.
Wrightsell is the sixth-most efficient offensive player in the country, per KenPom, with an offensive rating of 134.9. His offensive rating during SEC play was No. 1 of any player in the conference. He limits turnovers, too; Wrightsell has a turnover rate of 10.3, which ranks No. 173 in the country, and the best of any Alabama player.
Then there's what he brings as a shooter. Wrightsell has made 44.3% of his 3-point field goal attempts. That's the highest clip for any Alabama player this season, and it ranks No. 41 in the country, per KenPom. Throw in the fact he is also a perfect 27-for-27 from the free-throw line, and Wrightsell's value to Alabama only increases.
"You see his game mature, being able to recognize a good shot, bad shot, when to make plays, where to make them, just the IQ," Murphy said. "You just saw that kind of grow as he's gotten older and stronger and more mature."
The Madden battles have been legendary.
Griffen and Wrightsell have faced off many a times in the video game. They often compete at Wrightsell's house on the PlayStation. Wrightsell plays as the Colts; Wrightsell's a Colts fan. Meanwhile, Griffen competes as his hometown Cowboys. Neither team plays good defense. It's one play, bomb and then touchdown. Then another play, bomb and touchdown. They trade scores like it's tic-tac-toe. It often comes down to 42-42 late, or a score along those lines. Then one team pulls out the victory.
"We used to scream at the screen," Griffen said.
The football video game brings out the competitor in each of them, and it's no surprise for Wrightsell; Murphy has seen it on the basketball court for years.
"The thing that stuck out to me early when I first saw him was his competitive will," Murphy said. "He was in the game, and you would just see him do whatever it takes to win. Defensively, taking charges. Rebounding. He will do whatever it takes. To see that in a young kid, that's something that sticks out. Usually kids just care about scoring points and making pretty plays. At an early age, he was able to do that. But he took pride in the other side of the ball."
It's why Alabama missed him when he was out for four games with a head injury during the regular season. Wrightsell still has those qualities from his AAU days, even while playing the highest level of college basketball.
"It's hard to put a numeric value on a guy who is going to cover holes you maybe didn't see if a guy maybe missed an assignment, and he covers it, or a guy motivates his team and gets those guys to play above their average station," Murphy said. "Those are things that's not easily measured with the metrics. So I think those are some of the things we missed as a team with him being out."
Sears is the headliner, and for good reason. He was a consensus second-team All-America selection and leads the offense. Outside of him, there's not a player on the roster who brings more value than Wrightsell.
Nick Kelly is the Alabama beat writer for The Tuscaloosa News, part of the USA TODAY Network, and he covers Alabama football and men's basketball. Reach him at nkelly@gannett.com or follow him @_NickKelly on X, the social media app formerly known as Twitter .
This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Latrell Wrightsell Jr: Why he's vital to Alabama basketball
