The Brandon Miller drama at Alabama continues to take a dark turn.
It was bad enough when police in Tuscaloosa testified in court that the gifted freshman forward had brought a gun to his former teammate that was used in a shooting that killed a 23-year-old mother in a strip close to campus.
Miller was allowed to continue playing for the second-ranked Tide and went off for 41 points in a two-point victory over South Carolina Wednesday in Columbia.
Three days later, Miller received a huge ovation from the sellout crowd at Coleman Coliseum. But his pre-game introduction routine prior to the Tide’s 86-83 victory over Arkansas was a disaster, punctuated by him being patted down by a walk on while heading for midcourt, creating another public relations crisis after what looks like another tone-deaf response.
The optics were terrible considering this has been the biggest sports story of the past week and make it harder for the school to distance itself from the Jan. 15 murder.
Alabama coach Nate Oats addressed the issue after the game, calling it “not appropriate.”
“I don’t watch our introductions,” he claimed. I’m not involved with them. I’m drawing up plays during that time,” he said. “Regardless, it’s not appropriate. It’s been addressed and I can assure you it definitely will not happen again for the remainder of the year.”
Oats may not have seen it but the buck stops there when you are a $5 million paid employee of the university and have a huge coaching staff.
Miller, who has done the same pat down routine for games this season, continued the routine after Tuscaloosa Det. Branden Culpepper testified Miller brought now ex-teammate Darius Miles’ gun to him the night of the fatal shooting after Miles texted him and asked him to do so. Culpepper’s testimony came during the preliminary hearing for Miles and Michael Lynn Davis, who face capital murder charges for the death of Jamea Harris. Miles, who has been dismissed from the team, admitted to providing the gun used in the shooting, but Davis fired the weapon.
Alabama is national championship good, but the Tide will be living in a giant fishbowl the rest of the season.
This has been a drama filled season in college basketball, starting with Chris Beard being fired from Texas after police arrested him and charged him with allegedly assaulting his girlfriend and New Mexico State canceling the season and firing the coach after a fatal shooting and reports of sexual abuse and hazing by three players on a teammate. Those incidents, as ugly as they were, were handled by the administration.
Miller’s attorney has attempted to sanitize him, sending out his own version of what occurred, claiming Miller never saw Miles’ handgun and that it was concealed under some clothing in the back seat of the car and never handled the gun that was given to Davis but we haven’t heard Miller’s thoughts on the matter or his feelings about the murder of a single mother because Miller has been made unavailable to the media. So, we are all left hanging. Miller has not been charged and Tuscaloosa Assistant Deputy Attorney Paula Whitley said, there’s “nothing we could charge him with.”
Both Oats and investigators said Miller has been cooperative with the police. Oats, with Alabama sports information director instructed media to restrict questions to the game but he did respond to one question– whether or not he has reached out to the family of Harris at any point. “Listen, to address it a little bit,” Oats said. “I apologize for my previous comments this week. We understand the severity of it all, but I’m following the administration’s lead on everything here, so we’re going to talk about the game is what they would like for me to talk about.”
Miller scored 24 points with six rebounds against Arkansas and was largely cheered by the pro-Alabama crowd as opposed to Wednesday’s road game when he was jeered everything, he touched the ball with chants of “Guilty” and “Lock him up.”
“He’s one of the most mentally, if not the most mentally tough kid I’ve ever coached in my life and I’ve been coaching for a while,” Oats said. “While he completely understands the situation is tragic, and he takes it very seriously and he’s been cooperating the whole time, he’s also done a great job being able to focus on practices, games and just getting this laser focus where he’s dialed in to where his feet are at.’
But actions speak louder than words and the lack of common sense makes it harder to accept the fact Alabama is taking this seriously enough.
