Nate Oats talking about calling Ray Lewis a few weeks ago was a bigger red flag than we realized.
For those unfamiliar with this story, there are seven characters to know. There is Jamea Jonae Harris, a 23-year-old mother who is now deceased. There is Michael “Buzz” Davis, the 20-year-old man accused of killing her. There is Darius Miles, the since-dismissed injured Alabama basketball player accused of providing Davis with the murder weapon. There is Cedric Johnson, Harris’s boyfriend who was present for the shooting. And then there are three more. There is Jaden Bradley, a freshman starter still on Alabama’s basketball team. There is Brandon Miller, a freshman star still on Alabama’s basketball team and an All-American candidate with NBA lottery pick prospects. There is Nate Oats, head coach of the Alabama Crimson Tide.
Until yesterday, the story as we understood it was that on a night out in Tuscaloosa, Davis had been pursuing Harris romantically, Harris was uninterested, and Davis responded to this disinterest by shooting and killing her with the gun of Darius Miles, who was on the scene. Nothing has changed with this story’s outline. But yesterday, we filled in a lot of gaps. From AL.com:
Alabama’s freshman basketball standout Brandon Miller brought the gun used on the Tuscaloosa strip killing of a woman that led to capital murder charges for his now former teammate Darius Miles and 20-year-old Michael “Buzz” Davis, according to law enforcement testimony today.
Detective Branden Culpepper testified yesterday in court that Miles asked Miller to bring his gun to the scene of the eventual crime, and that Miller complied. Here is the rest of the report, excerpted:
Miles contacted Miller and asked him to bring his gun to where they were, according to police. The gun belonged to Miles.
When Miller got to the scene, Miles told Davis, “The heat is in the hat.” Det. Branden Culpepper said that meant a gun was present.
Miles added, “There’s one in the head.” That, Culpepper said, meant a round was in the chamber.
Miles moved his girlfriend back to get her out of line of fire, Culpepper added.
Miller’s windshield was struck twice by gunfire in the shooting, police testified. Another Alabama basketball player, Jaden Bradley, was also at the scene of the shooting, according to testimony.
…
Harris, the mother of a young son, was in Tuscaloosa visiting her cousin and boyfriend for the weekend when she was shot in the early-morning hours.
About 1:45 a.m. that Sunday, Tuscaloosa police and University of Alabama police were dispatched to the Walk of Champions at Bryant Denny Stadium on a shooting.
A Jeep had stopped there upon sighting a University of Alabama Police vehicle. Harris was dead inside the vehicle, said Tuscaloosa Violent Crimes Capt. Jack Kennedy.
Harris’s boyfriend, who drove Harris from the shooting scene, told police their vehicle had been struck by gunfire.
He had returned fire in self-defense and may have struck a suspect – believed to be Davis.
…
Harris’s mother, DeCarla Heard, told AL.com the ordeal began with the suspects trying to talk to Harris, who told them she had a boyfriend and wasn’t interested.
Court records state Davis fired the deadly shots, and that Miles admitted to providing Davis with the gun.
It was announced the day before the fatal shooting that the junior forward was ruled out for the season due to an ankle injury. Following news of his arrest, it was announced that Miles was no longer on the team.
Testimony from today’s court hearing show all involved had gone to Twelve25 Sports Bar that night.
Miller dropped Miles off at the club but did not stay because the line was too long.
After leaving the club, Harris, her boyfriend, Cedric Johnson, and her first cousin, Asia Humphrey, stopped at a nearby grill to get something to eat.
It was then they encountered Davis, who was dancing in front Harris’s Jeep. (sic)
Johnson told Davis that his girlfriend was not interested and to move along. “It got a little elevated,’’ the detective testified.
Culpepper said Davis said, “You don’t know who I am and what I do.’’
Miles and Davis walked away from the victim’s Jeep but later returned.
Two vehicles – a Dodge Charger and a Dodge Challenger that belonged to Miles’ teammates, Miller and Bradley – were blocking the road where the Jeep was parked.
Miles and Davis walked to Miller’s car and got something – believed to be the gun – out of the back seat. Culpepper said Miles had texted Miller saying, “I need my joint,” which is slang for a gun, police said.
Moments later, Culpepper testified, Davis approached the victims’ car and said, “I told you I was going to get you,’’ and then began firing through the driver’s side window of the Jeep.
He fired at least eight shots, some of them while running in an arc from the driver’s side around the back of the vehicle.
It was then, the detective said, that Miller’s Charger was struck by two bullets.
Johnson, the victim’s boyfriend, returned fire, striking Davis in the shoulder.
Harris was struck in the left side of her face.
The victims drove to the Walk of Champions where they found a police officer and stopped. Harris was pronounced dead there.
Culpepper testified that shortly after the shooting, police received a 911 call from Miles.
He made the call from University Downs apartments and reported that his friend had been shot.
Miles told the dispatcher, and later police, that he was at the apartment when his friend – Davis – showed up with a gunshot wound.
Miles said he didn’t know where Davis was when he got shot or how it happened.
In later interviews, the detective said, Miles said he and his girlfriend picked Davis up downtown after he was shot.
Finally, Culpepper said, police told Miles that all of it was caught on surveillance video from the Houndstooth Bar and it was then he admitted to being there during the shooting.
Culpepper said some of what happened was captured on dash cam from Miller’s vehicle.
After learning that, he said, Miles admitted to contacting Miller to bring him his gun and said Davis had gotten the gun from Miller’s vehicle.
He also acknowledged moving his girlfriend out of the way before the shooting started.
Culpepper testified that Davis told investigators that he was drunk on Tito’s tequila and didn’t remember what happened.
Defense attorneys claimed that Miles and Davis could have been in fear.
They said they had seen a gun in the victims’ vehicle and noted that when they could have left the area before the shooting, they instead came back, turned off their vehicle lights and stopped.
…
Asked by AL.com why Miller was not charged, Tuscaloosa chief deputy D.A. Paula Whitley said, “That’s not a question I can answer. There’s nothing we could charge him with,’’ according to the law, she said.
Alabama coach Nate Oats said Tuesday that Miller is “not in any trouble” as a result of his alleged involvement.
“We knew about that. Can’t control everything everybody does outside of practice. Nobody knew that was going to happen. College kids are out, Brandon hasn’t been in any type of trouble nor is he in any type of trouble in this case. Wrong spot at the wrong time,” Oats said.
**
Ok. That is a lot of information. Summarized and distilled to Miller’s role, we seem to know that Miller was asked to bring a gun, that Miller brought said gun, and that Miller was there when that gun was used to kill a woman, his car blocking the road where the woman, her boyfriend, and her friend were parked.
There’s a wide range of what this all could mean. You could craft a story from these facts saying that Miller thought Miles just wanted his gun back (we learned just now that Miles had left it in Miller’s back seat), and that Miller didn’t know the gun would be used in the murder, and that Miller didn’t even see clearly what had happened, gunfire hitting his car and forcing him to flee. You could craft another story from these facts saying that Miller arrived to the scene, saw what was happening, and declined to do anything to stop it, then didn’t say anything to the police or attempt to help as a young mother violently died.
In both of those stories and any in between, Brandon Miller was spectacularly dumb. In one, he was also knowingly an accomplice to murder. Did Miller do anything illegal? I don’t know enough about Alabama law to know. But regardless of the legality or illegality of bringing a murder weapon to a murder and blocking the road while the murder occurs…good God, Nate Oats. Good God.
I wish I’d remembered the Ray Lewis thing when I was talking to my brother on Sunday. It slipped my mind. Yes, Nate Oats had called Ray Lewis for advice in how to react to a murder committed by a since-dismissed member of his team, seeing as Lewis was once accused of being involved in a murder himself, but when it was only that, I let it go. The two people we thought were involved were both arrested, Miles was off the team, much of media gives Ray Lewis the treatment of a sparklingly innocent man so why wouldn’t Oats give him a call? Now the call is weird. Now, I’m feeling like a dumbass for saying, “Nate Oats seems cool. Remember when he called out Coach K during the Covid season?”
Much as I don’t know whether Miller should be charged with a crime or whether Tuscaloosa police could be protecting him for the sake of the University of Alabama, I don’t know whether Nate Oats should be fired for spectacular stupidity. Between Miller and Bradley and Oats, we know there’s a ton of idiocy on and around the Alabama basketball team, but we don’t know exactly how villainous it is. What we do know is that Nate Oats thinks the proper response to his player’s involvement in a murder is to say, “Wrong spot at the wrong time,” which of course is not the proper response. That devalues the life of Jamea Jonae Harris. That downplays the significance of murder. That is a bad, bad, bad response.
If you are Nate Oats and you believe Brandon Miller did something stupid and tragic but not intentionally malicious, there are ways to handle that. You can say, “We’ve taken all of this extremely seriously and handled discipline for the players involved in-house. We’ve instituted stricter curfews, we’ve forbidden players from going out in Tuscaloosa on weekend nights, and to the extent allowed by Alabama law we have restricted the presence of guns in these players’ lives. It’s a tragedy. It’s horrific. Our hearts go out to Jamea Jonae Harris. We’ve also connected Brandon and Jaden to counselors to help them process what they witnessed that night. The whole thing is awful.” Say that, and you’ll have criticism—possibly justified criticism—but you won’t have to suspend players if you don’t think they should be suspended. You’ll have shown you at least understand you should take this seriously. The problem with how Nate Oats is handling this is that he isn’t showing that. He isn’t showing that he takes it seriously, and he isn’t even showing that he understands it’s a serious matter. It’s awful, awful, awful, and maybe you don’t fire a coach for being this big of a heartless idiot, but if you’re one of his many bosses, you get him apologizing and you get him disciplined and you get him into whatever programs are out there that help people recognize the value of human life. Is Nate Oats a psychopath? Good God, man.
Iowa State’s Fine
It was a bummer of a loss in Austin last night (cool new arena, though, fun to see it in person), but Iowa State is fine, and I’d honestly say they came out as ahead of Texas as one can on a series split. Texas students waiting until the very end to chant “Fuck you, Caleb” at Caleb Grill—sidelined with his back injury as T.J. Otzelberger prioritizes his guard’s readiness for March over a couple seed lines in the tournament—showed both that Caleb Grill is in their head, probably from his taunts as the Cyclones whooped the Longhorns in Ames, AND that the Texas student section was not sure their team would win until the clock ticked under one minute. Not a great look for UT.
It wasn’t a great look for Iowa State, either, getting torn apart on the defensive boards and looking lost for long stretches of action on offense. Still, we knew that was who this team was. They need to learn to keep their heads (Grill’s eventual return will likely help with that but not fix it entirely), and they need to hope their strong offensive nights come at the right time, and they need to box out thoroughly and not allow so many rebounds to be tipped out to half court. They have three weeks to work on all of this before it starts defining how long they get to keep playing basketball.
Michigan State’s Meaningful Moment
I don’t know enough about Tom Izzo to cast judgment on him as a person, but I’m glad Michigan State has a figurehead right now. Watching the clips from last night’s win, the thing that stands out the most, for me at least, is how glad I am that the broader Michigan State community has a place to rally. Plenty of people say this, but it’s true: One of the best things about sports is that they give us places to gather together. Michigan State is, as a community, used to gathering around its men’s basketball program. Most often, that gathering is purely to cheer the team on. Last night, it was for far more than that, and that was only possible because this gathering was already the habit in East Lansing.
Apple and the Pac-12
A report came yesterday from Andrew Marchand saying Apple TV is in talks with the Pac-12. This isn’t a big surprise. The rumbling earlier this week—from Pete Thamel, maybe, I might be misremembering but it’s unimportant—was that Amazon wasn’t necessarily the Pac-12’s prospective streaming partner, and Apple has been in this conversation before, so it’s natural that they appear again and just a little louder.
I…I don’t know. I don’t think this is as bad as others think it is in the long term. People are switching to streaming, and eventually someone will create an app that streamlines combining streaming services so it’s easier to flip between sports (i.e., you’d have one app and you could watch both Peacock and Apple in it, or whatever your grouping may be), and eventually someone else will create an app that makes it easy to subscribe and unsubscribe to services as the sporting seasons warrant. They will then make these apps easy to use, the way we eventually got my grandma an iPhone and she used it successfully before she passed. Cable is a dinosaur with no natural advantage over streaming besides history, and it’s already losing the race. A la carte TV is coming. It’s just too demanded to not arrive.
In the short term, though?
That’s hell for the Pac-12.
We don’t get CBS Sports Network. We don’t get it on any package we pay for. And because of that, we don’t watch the Mountain West too much. If we were Colorado State fans, we would bite the bullet, but we’re not, so we just miss those games. Similar things are happening to non-Big 12 fans trying to watch Big 12 games on ESPN+. They just don’t watch. Pac-12 fans will buy Apple TV if it allows them to watch the Pac-12. But the rest of us? You better hope we have it already, Oregon. Otherwise, you’re just not good enough to make us pay up.
I suppose this short-term infeasibility could destroy the long-term feasibility of the model. That’s fair and possible. But Peacock’s chipping away, and ESPN+ is chipping away. We’re heading these directions. Just not fast enough to save the Pac-12’s next TV deal without crushing its visibility.
(Also, this is real old man talk, but there are too many channels and I miss finding movies on TV and watching snippets of them.)
Brock Purdy’s Surgery Has Been Delayed
Brock Purdy’s reportedly still dealing with some swelling in the elbow set to undergo surgery, so it didn’t happen today as scheduled. It’s unclear how late this will be pushed out, but they’re saying at least March, meaning Purdy in the very best scenarios won’t be back fully healthy until the very end of August, if not September. And those are the best scenarios, where the repair works and a reconstruction isn’t necessary and it’s a six-month recovery that goes smoothly.
Not looking good for our guy to be a healthy full-time NFL starter Week 1. For better or worse.
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What’s happening tonight:
College Basketball (the good ones)
- 6:30 PM EST: Providence @ UConn (FS1)
- 7:00 PM EST: Kentucky @ Florida (ESPN)
- 9:00 PM EST: Iowa @ Wisconsin (BTN)
- 10:30 PM EST: New Mexico @ Boise State (FS1)
College Basketball (national teams of interest)
- 7:00 PM EST: Virginia @ Boston College (ESPN+)
- 9:00 PM EST: Tulane @ Houston (ESPNU)
- 9:00 PM EST: Alabama @ South Carolina (ESPN2)
NHL (playoff-impacting games, which is all tonight’s)
- 7:00 PM EST: Winnipeg @ NY Islanders (ESPN+)
- 9:30 PM EST: Calgary @ Arizona (ESPN+)
- 9:30 PM EST: Chicago @ Dallas (TNT)
