Alabama Basketball Newcomer Breakdown: Davin Cosby Jr.
This is the seventh in a multi-part series where BamaCentral's Blake Byler will crunch the numbers and break down the film to give you everything you need to know about each of Alabama basketball's newcomers.
Of all of the newcomers that joined Alabama basketball for this upcoming season, Davin Cosby Jr. might have the most interesting resume.
He's already an SEC regular season champion, he's already an SEC Tournament champion, and he even already has an ejection in a collegiate game to his name. He's one of four total returning scholarship players from last season's team, alongside Mark Sears, Rylan Griffen and Nick Pringle.
And yet, he hasn't played a single minute of college basketball.
Cosby took a unique path to get to Tuscaloosa, growing up in Richmond, Virginia before transferring to Word of God Christian Academy in Raleigh, North Carolina before his senior year of high school.
He got off to a blistering start, averaging 20 points per game and positioning himself as a top-100 recruit in the 2023 recruiting cycle. Then, in December, he made the decision to graduate early, skipping the rest of his senior season, and enrolling at Alabama to join the basketball team in January.
The Crimson Tide had an open roster spot, and was able to use it to bring Cosby in, redshirt him, and get him acclimated to practice, the strength and conditioning program, and the university before his intended freshman season came in 2023-24.
"It’s gonna help us quite a bit as far as practice goes, I think," Alabama head coach Nate Oats said when Cosby reclassified. "He’ll start to learn the system. He’ll get with Henry [Barrera], our strength coach, start to get his body right. It’s just different. You can do a lot more in college, a lot more resources. And then I think he’ll help our scout team, too. It’ll make our guys better. It’ll be good to have him around the program and just for him to learn."
And 'getting his body right' is exactly what he did. According to the official Alabama roster last season, Cosby was listed at 193 pounds. Over the summer, Barrera took to Instagram to show off the progress Cosby has made in the weight room, saying he's gained over 10 pounds since joining the program.
But what does Cosby bring to the basketball floor itself?
The first thing to notice is his respectable size for a guard. He measures at 6-foot-5, and like most Oats players these days, has a longer-than-average wingspan that will improve the team length on the floor.
When it comes to his best skill as a basketball player, Cosby is a shooter in every sense of the word. First, let's look at his shooting in the halfcourt.
The first play shows Cosby capitalizing on a baseline-out-of-bounds play, or a BLOB. This is one of the few areas where Alabama struggled mightily last season, with turnovers plaguing the Crimson Tide when trying to get the ball in. Luckily, newly-hired assistant coach Ryan Pannone specializes in creative BLOB plays, and should be able to open that area up tremendously this season.
In the play, Cosby runs from the left side of the floor to the right wing off multiple screens. His defender gets caught up behind them, creating space for a shot.
The pass is low, but Cosby isn't bothered by the placement and easily brings the ball up into his shooting pocket. One of the most important aspects of consistent shooting is having consistent feet placement on release, and Cosby does an excellent job re-positioning his feet squarely underneath him after the catch for an easy knockdown jumper.
In the second clip Cosby is flaring out to the right wing for a shot, but the defender does a nice job closing out to prevent the immediate shot. Cosby then jabs right and dribbles to his left, repositioning himself with space to get the shot off.
It's not wide open, but he drains the shot with ease after once again setting his feet and firing.
Next, let's look at how Cosby shoots in transition:
Cosby is always running the floor looking to shoot, which not only displays his immense confidence, but shows how he plays his role.
In a 3-on-2 fast break in the first clip, Cosby lets one teammate run to the rim while he hangs back and settles just beyond the 3-point line. Because the defense had dropped back to defend the rim, Cosby receives a pass in-rhythm and pulls up with no hesitation.
It's well-known that Alabama plays with one of the fastest tempos in the country, and shoots an incredibly high volume of 3-pointers. This leads to a substantial number of transition threes, many of which ignite a fire inside Coleman Coliseum as they punctuate runs and precede opponents' timeouts.
The second clip shows Cosby's deep range, to the point where he wasn't even on the screen when he took the shot. He's always trailing the play looking for some space beyond the arc, and his knack for feeling the open space results in many open looks.
To find playing time in Oats' system, you have to be confident in your shot, and Cosby boasts plenty of it.
In addition to his shooting, Cosby has a respectable driving game that includes an underrated handle and a capable finishing ability, especially with his dominant right hand.
With the defense on its heels in the first clip, Cosby traps his defender with a hesitation into a spin move, and glides to the rim for a right-handed finish.
In the second clip he again freezes his defender with a hesitation, before blowing by him towards the rim and showcasing his athleticism by hanging in the air to convert a difficult reverse layup.
Cosby has solid athleticism to go along with his decent-sized frame for a guard, which are all tools that will help him on the defensive end. He's not necessarily known for his individual defense, but he has been described as a hard-nosed player with great hustle, and with his added weight, should be at least a net-neutral on that end of the floor.
The path for Cosby to accrue more playing time became apparent when Jahvon Quinerly became a late entry into the transfer portal and wound up at Memphis. With Quinerly out of the picture, Alabama now only has three guards that are definitievely in the rotation in Sears, Aaron Estrada and Latrell Wrightsell Jr.
Most teams need more than three guards in the rotation to function, and with Griffen likely sliding into a small forward/wing role in his second year, there is room for Cosby to play a role as a reserve in his redshirt freshman season.
The wildcard is if Cosby's shooting is lights-out from the beginning, which would make it very hard to keep him off the floor as long as he remains competent in other areas.
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