Outside the locker room, it was business as usual Tuesday night in Nashville.
The No. 4 Crimson Tide basketball team had just won its seventh-straight game, 78-66 over Vanderbilt, and the visiting fans were ready to celebrate. An acapella Rammer Jammer serenaded the team after the final buzzer and hometown favorite Brandon Miller’s 30-point night received a curtain call.
Inside that dressing room, however, was a much different scene.
This was a team just days removed from seeing now-former teammate Darius Miles arrested for capital murder for his alleged involvement in an early-morning shooting. Alabama coach Nate Oats said he didn’t see much emotion from his team before tipoff in Memorial Gymnasium.
“But, he said, “I did see some guys break down postgame. I think they were bottling some stuff up. You know, we had a job to do. We had to get to the game, got to the game, took care of business and then it’s almost like there’s a big relief the game is over and we let out a sigh of relief.”
Miles was a veteran on this team but an injury and influx of young talent meant less playing time this season. After two weeks away to deal with a personal matter, the junior from Washington D.C. was back on the bench for Saturday’s win over LSU. He celebrated with the team in the locker room but just hours later, he was allegedly involved in the shooting death of 23-year-old Birmingham mother Jamea Jonae Harris.
Miles was taken to jail Sunday afternoon and the team grieving process began soon after.
“We’re trying to use it to bring the team closer together,” Oats said Tuesday after the game. “It’s a tragic situation and we feel awful for any part of or anybody in our program had to do with it but we’re trying our best to learn within our group to make better choices and we’re praying for Jamea and her family, her son especially. She left a 5-year-old here. So, the whole situation needs a lot of prayer.”
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For Vanderbilt coach Jerry Stackhouse, the whole situation and timeline were hard to process.
“I can’t fathom how they’d even be able to play in this game,” Stackhouse said.. In my pregame speech, I even put a damper on for the guys because I was like, we should really just go out and honor the victims, honor this kid that we all know and have competed against whose life is changed forever. Just go out and be thankful. I mean, this game means nothing.”
Stackhouse then crumbled up the stat sheet on the table in front of him.
“Nothing,” he continued. “I hurt for his family, that young lady’s family who are losing their loved ones tonight and we’re here with a basketball game.”
Oats acknowledged everyone responds on a different timetable.
“Some of them probably handled it a little bit better,” Oats said in his postgame interview on the SEC Network, “and some of them looked like maybe they were still in a fog tonight. But hopefully, by Saturday, we’ll have everybody back in a better frame of mind.”
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Alabama (16-2, 6-0 SEC) will play on the road again Saturday, this time at Missouri.
The grieving and healing process won’t end with the emotional release in the postgame locker room Tuesday.
“I think the guys need some time … a lot of time,” Oat said. “I mean, the guys have been using the resources from the school with the counselors and I think more of them will see some counselors tomorrow. It’s a hard situation pregame but I think they got themselves locked in and ready to go.”
Alabama players took pictures and signed autographs with the large group of fans who stuck around outside the locker room after the game.
This is a team on a historic run, perhaps the most talented team in the program’s modern era, though the celebration was somewhat dulled on a strange Tuesday in Nashville during a week nobody involved can still fully comprehend.
Michael Casagrande is a reporter for the Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @ByCasagrande or on Facebook.
