Everything Nate Oats Said After Alabama Beat South Carolina in OT

Freshman forward Brandon Miller scored a career-high 41 points as the Crimson Tide pulled off the 78-76 victory over the Gamecocks.

Christopher Walsh | Feb 23, 2023

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Alabama Crimson Tide

This is a complete transcript of the postgame press conference Wednesday night following the Alabama basketball team's 78-76 overtime victory at South Carolina.

The comments by Crimson Tide athletic director Greg Byrne that basketball coach Nate Oats references are at the bottom:

"It was quite a game. Before we get into the game, I want to address yesterday's press conference and my response to the Brandon Miller question. I'm not here to make excuses but I want to make it clear I didn’t have the details from the hearing that morning since I was coming straight from practice, and I used a poor choice of words and maybe making it appear like I wasn’t taking this tragic situation seriously, which we have throughout the course of it. I sincerely apologize for that."

"I know Greg [Byrne] shared some information earlier today on the situation, I don’t really have anything more to add."

What led the decision for Brandon play today?

"Well, as Greg shared earlier we make decisions based on available facts and that's what we did here."

Going through something like Brandon has the last day or two, he’s a young guy it might have really affected him and his resolve out there really seemed strong. Is that the kind of guy he is?

"Yeah, he’s one of the most mentally tough kids I’ve ever coached. I’m not surprised, 41 points, you don’t want to say you expect that. But I’m not surprised he came ready to play, and played well tonight."

For the other guys, how much of a distraction was everything and did you see that maybe affect them in their play?

"It’s hard to say. You know, the Vanderbilt game came after that. It may have been. If I wanted to make an excuse for them, we can use it, but I'm not really a guy who makes excuses, we have to play better. Some of those other guys didn't play up to their typical performance. You know, I'm not sure. Obviously, it could have been a distraction, but Brandon showed up and played pretty well. I think, you know, it may have just been coincidental. I don't know. Hopefully we’ll play a whole lot better Saturday. We’ll need everyone to play a little better for us."

After everything that’s happened the past couple of days, what did it mean to you to pull this one out?

"It was big. It was one that we could not afford to drop, and South Carolina came ready to play. I mean they were making tough shots. I mean shoot, that three at the end of the half turned out to be a pretty big three in an overtime game. They did a lot of things right. We didn’t play well. I told our guys I was proud of them. Sometimes you shoot it poorly. We didn’t make free throws at our normal clip. We didn’t shoot the ball from three at a decent clip. Outside of Brandon I think everyone else was 1-for-14. We didn’t do a lot of things well and still figured out a way to win, against a pretty talented team. So, on the road, it’s not easy to do, so give our guys a lot of credit. We out-rebounded them by 13 and we made some tough plays. We got some tough stops down the stretch. I was proud of our guys in that regard, for sure."

[On when he could gauge how well Brandon Miller was dealing with things in relation to the game:]

"You have to go back to the [Vanderbilt] game, which was a comparison to this one a little bit. I thought he came ready to play then, right out of the gate. There have been games he hasn't been as locked in, to be honest with you. Basketball kind of becomes a safe haven a little bit for some of these guys. They get on the floor and they kind of lock in on what they've done their whole lives, and get some of the outside stuff out of their mind."

"I thought Brandon did a great job, really getting himself mentally ready to play, and [Charles Bediako] was really aggressive and we really needed him to be aggressive. We didn't have a lot of our other guys [playing well] for us. We scored 78 points and only had two guys in double figures. It's not typical for this team. We usually have pretty balanced scoring outside of that. [Mark] Sears has been good for us. Jaden Bradley's been good, [Noah] Clowney has been good. Nimari [Burnett] has been shooting the ball pretty well. He didn't make his shot tonight."

"Brandon needed to be aggressive and he was. I thought you could tell early on that he was trying to be extra aggressive, and they were doing a pretty good job with defending him too, putting different kinds of matchups on him and at the end they ended up going small on him. I thought Brandon did a good job of attacking down and getting to the rim on that stuff."

Did the Vanderbilt game help you prepare for this game?

"Yeah. I mean we referenced it a little bit. We've been in tough situations with things that could be a distraction, and let’s focus in. I thought we played pretty well at Vandy. Let's come out and do it again. Again, maybe it's just coincidental that some of these guys struggled. I don't know, I don't want to make excuses for anybody struggling. We just we gotta play better on Saturday. But we referenced it a little bit, not a whole lot. To be honest with you our main focus was on the [scouting report]. I mean we try to keep things as normal as possible. The South Carolina scout was our main focus, 95 percent of what we spent time with the team on and I thought I thought we prepared the guys well, they just did a good job. We didn't make shots. You’re gonna have some of those nights. You don't shoot the ball well, and the opponent, they shot 43 percent from 3 and they made some tough ones. They made a half-court shot. They made the buzzer shot. I mean, shot-clock shots. They made some real tough 3s. We had some wide open looks and missed them. So it's going to happen like that and for your team to still figure out to get a win I think it shows a ton of character from a bunch of guy, and I was proud of how they performed tonight."

Greg Byrne

The Alabama AD appeared on the pregame ESPN College Gameday podcast, hosted by Rece Davis and Pete Thamel.

On the decision to play Miller:

“It was ongoing from the get-go when the incident happened. It was conversation between myself, Nate Oats, conversation with myself and the president. We have legal counsel involved for the university. We have our different offices within the university that are at least aware of it. We had normal conversations like we do for other issues. That information was shared collectively and collectively we decided that Brandon was able to play.”

On the perception that Miller is getting preferential treatment:

“Rece, I think that’s a fair narrative that people can immediately go to and what I have tried to think about the entire time is, ‘Let’s do what we think is right. Let’s make sure we are honest. Let’s make sure we cooperate and we support law enforcement and anyone else out there that needs to be supported through this.’

"You can control what you can control. I can’t control whether somebody immediately goes to that as their thought on this. What I felt is that Brandon needed to be treated fairly like any other student-athlete.”

Greg Byrne

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