Nate Oats explains whether Brandon Miller's situation was a distraction for teammates

Despite the circus swirling around the Alabama Basketball program at the moment, the actual team came out and narrowly took care of business against South Carolina on the road. The Gamecocks are towards the very bottom of the SEC standings but put up a tremendous fight against the nation’s No. 2 ranked team, even forcing the contest into overtime before Brandon Miller — the kid at the center of attention off the court this week — ultimately put the game away by rising over a Carolina defender and finishing a lead-taking layup with under two seconds to play.

Miller was sensational on the basketball court Wednesday night. Regardless of the legal situation he’s currently involved in, as a hooper, Brandon Miller turned perhaps his most dazzling performance: 41 points, including the shot to force overtime and the game-winner. It doesn’t get much better than that. On a night where his teammates struggled and distractions could have pulled his head in a million different directions, Miller rose to his best.

“He’s one of the most mentally-tough kids I’ve ever coached,” head coach Nate Oats said of the freshman after the game. “I’m not surprised. 41 points, you don’t wanna say you expect that but not surprised he came ready to play and played well tonight.”

Miller was sensational and the Tide needed every single one of those 41 points to eke out the win. However, was the off-court drama surrounding Miller a distraction for the rest of the team? It would make sense, since the rest of the team shot so poorly all night.

Here was Oats’ response to that very question:

“It’s hard to say. The Vanderbilt game came after that (initial report). It may have been. If I wanna make an excuse for them, we can use it. But I’m not really a guy that makes too many excuses. We’ve gotta play better. Some of those other guys didn’t play up to their typical performance. I’m not sure. It obviously could have been a distraction, but Brandon showed up and played pretty well. So I think it may have just been coincidental. Hopefully, we play a lot better Saturday. We need everybody to play a little bit better Saturday for us.”

Oats doesn’t dismiss that the off-court situation could have impacted the team, but he’s not one to use such circumstances as an excuse for a poor performance overall. Credit to Miller for a Herculean effort in Columbia, but the Tide will need a much better all-around effort to win next time out.