Nates Oats addresses Darius Miles suspension length

Nate Oats and the Alabama Crimson Tide were forced to take on No. 5 Kentucky without a key piece of depth, as sophomore forward Darius Miles was suspended for the contest due to a violation of team rules.

What ensued was a nightmare scenario for the Crimson Tide, as they lost 66-55 to the Wildcats on their home court. According to Oats, however, Miles won’t be gone for long — assuming he handles himself as expected, Alabama expects him back for the next SEC contest.

“Based on our conversations, moving forward, how he handles himself, we plan on him being available on Wednesday,” Oats said of Miles, heading into a Wednesday night tilt at Ole Miss. “But that’s the plan. We will see how the conversations with him go moving forward.”

Alabama suspends Darius Miles

“Alabama forward Darius Miles is suspended for tonight’s game due to a violation of team rules, per UA,” Charlie Potter of 247Sports said on Saturday.

Miles, a native of Washington, D.C., hasn’t been a leading scorer by any means — but he still provides a key spark for the Alabama Crimson Tide off the bench. Additionally, the 6-foot-6, 185-pound forward is one of Oats’ better three-point shooters. He was averaging 6.7 points, 3.5 rebounds, 0.7 assists and 0.7 steals per contest prior to his suspension, while holding a roughly 35 percent conversion rate from beyond the arc.

Though Miles is from Washington, D.C., he prepped rather far from home, attending boarding school at IMG Academy, where he blossomed into a four-star recruit, according to the On3 Consensus,  a complete and equally weighted industry-generated average that utilizes all four major recruiting media companies.

Kentucky entered the game on Saturday with all the momentum — the Wildcats were coming off a tremendous, 80-62 victory over then-No. 5 Kansas, and they followed it up with a narrow victory over the Vanderbilt Commodores. Alabama by comparison, has been shaky, at best, all season. The Crimson Tide suffered a crushing loss to the bottom-dwelling Georgia Bulldogs not long ago, and while they rebounded with a top-10 victory over Baylor in the SEC-Big 12 challenge, they then traveled to Auburn and suffered a regular-season sweep to the rival Tigers; this time, Auburn made sure the game wasn’t close, winning by a 100-81 final.

With the loss to Kentucky, Alabama fell to 14-9 overall, with a 4-6 conference record to date. Oats will next lead his squad into an away game at Ole Miss, one of the worst teams in the SEC, as the Rebels sport just a 12-11 overall record and 3-7 record in SEC play.

Kentucky, on the other hand, just keeps rolling: The Wildcats appear to be up there with Auburn as one of two teams to beat in the SEC, and they’re now 19-4 overall with a 10-0 conference record.