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Whether Brandon Miller should’ve played at South Carolina late Wednesday became the biggest debate in sports in the 24 hours leading up to tipoff — with Alabama fans largely insisting he should while basically everybody else shook their heads and called Alabama fans crazy. It’s an ongoing argument that could last weeks.
Either way, Brandon Miller did play at South Carolina late Wednesday.
Unsurprisingly, he was awesome.
Miller took 25 shots, made 14 of them and finished with a career-high 41 points in Alabama’s 78-76 overtime win at South Carolina. He got the bucket that forced overtime. He got the bucket that won the game. He also got booed and taunted and, well, this is how the rest of his college career is going to unfold.
With controversy.
As I explained on Inside College Basketball, in a world where players are sometimes suspended for smoking marijuana, missing curfew or skipping class, Miller has started 11 straight games since playing a role in the death of Jamea Harris, a 23-year-old mother who died after being shot in the face by a gun Miller brought to the scene of the incident. Miller’s lawyer, Jim Standridge, has said his client never handled the gun. Fine. But what Standridge does not deny is that Miller arrived at the scene with the gun after Miller’s former teammate, Darius Miles, sent a text message indicating an altercation was underway and requesting that Miller bring the gun.
Is that a crime?
Tuscaloosa County chief assistant district attorney Paula Whitley has said she does not believe it is, which is something I’ll let the lawyers debate. Regardless, as I explained on Inside College Basketball, driving around with a gun in your car, and then bringing that gun to a place where, very shortly after you arrive, the gun is used to kill the mother of a 5-year-old little boy has to at least be a violation of some team rule, and if you don’t have a team rule that covers that, then I don’t know what kind of program you’re running.
Former Duke standout Grayson Allen was once suspended for tripping an opposing player, for crying out loud. So it remains shameful that Miller has not been punished in any public way by his coach or school. It’s why the outrage nationally is intense, and why Alabama Basketball has gone from one of the best stories in the sport to the clear-cut most controversial.
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