Nate Oats, Brandon Miller face questions about fatal shooting following first SEC Tournament win

Alabama beat Mississippi State 72-49 to advance to the SEC Tournament semifinals today, but that hardly felt like the biggest story at Bridgestone Arena. After the game, Nate Oats, Brandon Miller, and Jahvon Quinerly took the podium to answer questions; predictably, many of them centered around Miller’s involvement in January’s fatal shooting of 23-year-old Jamea Jonae Harris.

If you haven’t been following along, former Alabama player Darius Miles and his friend Michael Lynn Davis were indicted on capital murder charges by a Tuscaloosa County grand jury earlier today. Davis allegedly shot Harris with Miles’ gun, which a law enforcement official testified that Miles texted Miller to bring him. The story has dominated the headlines and Miller spoke to the media about it for the first time earlier this week in a press conference before leaving for Nashville. The press conference room at Bridgestone Arena was packed following the Tide’s win over the Bulldogs, with several national media members using the opportunity to question Miller, Oats, and even Quinerly on the matter.

For the most part, Miller no-commented, deferring when asked if he thought he should have missed any playing time. He thanked his teammates for their support. When asked, Quinerly said that he does not own a gun. When Miller and Quinerly were excused, Oats faced another round of questioning. He said he is “comfortable” with the decision to continue to play Miller.

“So it’s been a difficult situation, as you understand. I mean, we’re dealing with a criminal matter. Taking the facts from law enforcement as they do their investigation.

“As we got the facts from them, this was a decision made, based on all the facts we had, with, obviously, my boss, Greg Byrne; his boss, Dr. Bell; and the Board of Trustees. And everybody was comfortable, and, I mean, based on the information we had, Brandon didn’t break any school policy or team policy, so… I was comfortable with the decision that was made.”

When asked if he has reached out to the family of Jamea Jonae Harris, Oats deferred, saying it is a “private matter.”

“Listen, this whole situation has been, obviously, as you know, hard to deal with, tragic, to have any involvement in a young woman losing her life. What you ask is a private matter; I’m not going to discuss publicly with everybody. A lot of this is just hard to deal with, to be honest with you. But it’s a private matter.”

With Alabama advancing and almost guaranteed a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament, this story’s not going anywhere and the spotlight’s just going to get brighter.