Alabama's star guard credits Preston Murphy and his favorite movie for his 3-point celebration.
TAMPA, Fla. -- Alabama superstar Labaron Philon is having a stellar sophomore season. The Mobile point guard has been selected as an All-American by various publications and opened the first round of the NCAA Tournament with a dominant performance to drive the Crimson Tide into the Round of 32 on Sunday.
Philon's become deadly at the rim, scoring 22 points with 4.8 assists and 3.4 rebounds per game this season, but his biggest improvement has come behind the 3-point line. The sophomore's improved his accuracy from long range by nine percentage points in his second season, making 40-percent of his attempts and is on pace to double his makes from a season ago. Alabama's leader has become a dangerous three-level scorer with the improvement from beyond the arc and Philon's added a new gesture to celebrate big buckets. Philon's been seen throughout the season mimicking Peter Parker's hand positioning and pretending to shoot webs from his wrists like Marvel's famous wall crawler., I think that's a really good movie I've been watching it a lot. It's a great movie," Philon said. "Coach Preston started that. He beat me in a 3-point contest - don't worry, he never won again - but he started shooting the webs at me and I was like ok I'm going to take that." Murphy said the shooting competitions are just games he plays with the players to warmup before practice to get the competitive juices flowing and dial in for the day ahead. "We shoot around a lot, I shoot around with guys a lot," Murphy said. "So just some prepractice things while we're getting warmed up. Kind of just some friendly competition with a lot of trash talk and stuff. That's where that stems from. Murphy was a prolific shooter at Rhode Island in the mid 90s making 37-percent from deep across his four years for Rams, but Alabama forward Aiden Sherrell was suspicious of his ability despite his proficient background. "I just know Coach Murphy cheats in every shooting contest," Sherrell said. "He cheats every time. He's cheated me every single time I've tried to go against him. It's crazy. He'll try to count some points, and not count some points. It's crazy. He tries to do it every time." Philon backed his teammate up and said Murphy doesn't keep proper count, making winning an even bigger challenge. "Yeah, that's true," Philon said. "He only beat me one time, really. He cheats all the time. I can't really do anything about it because he's the coach, but I win almost every time if you want to be completely honest. He'll make a shot, and he'll have like two, and he'll shout out four! He jumps the numbers, so you've really got to watch his shots because sometimes when shots rim out, he still counts them as makes." Murphy didn't argue when asked if his singular victory was an anomoly in his series, but instead let the star guard's word stand as fact. "I would have to fact check that. I don't know how accurate that is, but if he said it we'll just go with it.Joe Gaither oversees videos and podcasts for Alabama Crimson Tide On SI/BamaCentral. He began his sports media career in radio in 2019, working for three years in Tuscaloosa covering the University of Alabama and other local high school sports. In 2023 he joined BamaCentral to cover a variety of Crimson Tide sports and recruiting, in addition to hosting the “Joe Gaither Show” podcast. His work has also appeared on the Boston College, Missouri and Vanderbilt web sites.
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