Alabama Basketball-From Dream Season To Total Nightmare

[GAN]

At a minimum, Alabama should have suspended him while the did their own "investigation" . Doing nothing is not a good look. He would be long gone permanently at the school I support, no question.

The police did(or are doing) an investigation. They didn’t charge the kid with anything, so why would you suspend him? If he was charged, then absolutely. Without a doubt you could question the local police and maybe the State Police …but apparently the two charged claim Miller had nothing to do with it other than driving back so Miles could get the gun out of his back seat. Please don’t say you school is Penn State

 

[WEDWDW]

No doubt it’s a terrible story, but are they supposed to stop playing? The two players involved are up for Capital Murder charges, Miller was involved because one of those two left the gun in the back seat of his car. If my friend left his gun in my car I’d give it back to him real quickly, so I can’t say I blame Miller for wanting to get it back to him. I think he’s saying he had no idea a murder was planned …if it was planned. Ray Lewis of the Ravens was directly involved in a murder and that never stopped anyone from cheering for him every Sunday -they even gave him a job on TV after his career!

Of course not,but there are so many things they could have done to at least given the appearance that they cared about the death of Jamea Harris.

Alabama could have suspended Brandon Miller and Jaden Bradley for 2 games for being at the scene and not immediately reporting the event to authorities.That would have shown they recognize the seriousness of what happened.

While Brandon and Jaden were not criminally involved,by not immediately reporting the event,we feel they did not uphold the standards we expect from all our Student Athletes and they are being suspended for the next 2 games.

Even if Alabama had lost those 2 games it would not have dramatically altered their Season.

There could have been a moment of silence at the next Basketball game and also at the next Softball and Baseball games.

The University of Alabama and Tuscaloosa Communities experienced a terrible tragedy recently.We ask that you please rise and observe a moment of silence in memory of Jamea Harris.

The fans of Alabama basketball could have announced a GoFundMe for Jamea Harris' son.

The Athletic Director could have announced that,although Alabama already has Conflict Resolution training in place for all Student Athletes,they would be redoubling those efforts.

The Basketball team could have worn small patches on their uniform with Jamea Harris' initials.

The President of the University of Alabama could have released a statemant on behalf of the entire University Community offering condolences to the Harris family.He has not SAID A WORD about the tragedy!

etc.,etc.

If they had done the things above they would be receiving very little criticism.

Instead they have done NOTHING!

They appear to have their heads in the sand not wanting this terrible tragedy to be a "buzzkill" to their Generational Basketball Team.

They appear to want the tragedy out of the news ASAP and quickly in the rear view mirror as if it never happened.

And it is disgusting.

 

[GAN]

Of course not,but there are so many things they could have done to at least given the appearance that they cared about the death of Jamea Harris.

Alabama could have suspended Brandon Miller and Jaden Bradley for 2 games for being at the scene and not immediately reporting the event to authorities.That would have shown they recognize the seriousness of what happened.

While Brandon and Jaden were not criminally involved,by not immediately reporting the event,we feel they did not uphold the standards we expect from all our Student Athletes and they are being suspended for the next 2 games.

Even if Alabama had lost those 2 games it would not have dramatically altered their Season.

There could have been a moment of silence at the next Basketball game and also at the next Softball and Baseball games.

The University of Alabama and Tuscaloosa Communities experienced a terrible tragedy recently.We ask that you please rise and observe a moment of silence in memory of Jamea Harris.

The fans of Alabama basketball could have announced a GoFundMe for Jamea Harris' son.

The Athletic Director could have announced that,although Alabama already has Conflict Resolution training in place for all Student Athletes,they would be redoubling those efforts.

The Basketball team could have worn small patches on their uniform with Jamea Harris' initials.

The President of the University of Alabama could have released a statemant on behalf of the entire University Community offering condolences to the Harris family.He has not SAID A WORD about the tragedy!

etc.,etc.

If they had done the things above they would be receiving very little criticism.

Instead they have done NOTHING!

They appear to have their heads in the sand not wanting this terrible tragedy to be a "buzzkill" to their Generational Basketball Team.

They appear to want the tragedy out of the news ASAP and quickly in the rear view mirror as if it never happened.

And it is disgusting.

Hey I don’t disagree ..clearly I’m a Bama fan. They chose the opposite of the suggestions and decided to wait until another story takes the headlines it sounds like, and it looks like they’re sticking with it for better or worse. As far as a generational team goes, this Is Oats 4th season and they have a solid record under him including a Conference Championship already and whatever happens this year. So hard to say it’s a generational team -they’ve been as good as anyone in a competitive conference.

 

[longboard55]

The police did(or are doing) an investigation. They didn’t charge the kid with anything, so why would you suspend him? If he was charged, then absolutely. Without a doubt you could question the local police and maybe the State Police …but apparently the two charged claim Miller had nothing to do with it other than driving back so Miles could get the gun out of his back seat. Please don’t say you school is Penn State

The standard for most schools is the kid does not need to be charged before the school does anything. You are not doing him any favors by just letting this go. He needs to get new friends, or he will not last 6 months in the NBA

 

[WEDWDW]

The standard for most schools is the kid does not need to be charged before the school does anything. You are not doing him any favors by just letting this go. He needs to get new friends, or he will not last 6 months in the NBA

For sure-Student Athletes can be suspended for any action the School deems not up to their standards.

Brandon Miller was sitting in his car when Darius Miles told Michael Davis where the gun was in the backseat of Miller's car and that it was loaded.

Miller witnessed the shooting and had 2 bullet holes in his back windshield.

He did not report to authorities that he had witnessed a shooting when the incident was over.

But still Alabama maintains that Brandon did NOTHING wrong!

In order to maintain ANY appearance of credibility Alabama HAD to suspend him for at least a game or 2 for not reporting a SHOOTING he had just WITNESSED to authorities.

Alabama did not.

So we are left to understand that a Student Athlete at Alabama witnessing a Shooting and not reporting it to authorities does not rise to the level of any form of a suspension.

 

[WEDWDW]

Hey I don’t disagree ..clearly I’m a Bama fan. They chose the opposite of the suggestions and decided to wait until another story takes the headlines it sounds like, and it looks like they’re sticking with it for better or worse. As far as a generational team goes, this Is Oats 4th season and they have a solid record under him including a Conference Championship already and whatever happens this year. So hard to say it’s a generational team -they’ve been as good as anyone in a competitive conference.

Alabama had only been ranked # 1 once in its history before this team.

No Alabama team has ever been a # 1 Seed in the NCAA Tournament which this team will be.

Many experts say Brandon Miller is the best player to ever play at Alabama(He has already been voted SEC Freshman of the Year AND SEC Player of the Year by the SEC Coaches) and that this team has the most depth of any Alabama team ever.

So,at this point,I don't think there is any question it is the best Alabama team of the last 20-30 years(generational) and could end up the best ever.

But,there are very troubling signs-since the Preliminary hearing,Alabama has STRUGGLED and is not playing anywhere close to the level they were Pre-Hearing.

Is the "stress" of living with the situation "weighing" on them?

And maybe they are even feeling a little "guilt" about not handling the tragedy properly and that is "weighing" on them as well.

It will be interesting to see if they can pull it all back together or if the Season will end with a devastating early exit from March Madness.

 

[WEDWDW]

The Party rolls on-not a hint of "sadness".

“It was a good day for us as far as SEC awards go,” Oats said. “We had six players get an SEC award. I think it’s the most in program history for one year. Brandon’s the first freshman to win Freshman of the Year and Player of the Year since Anthony Davis, so that’s pretty good company. It’s great that he was recognized on that."

 

[WEDWDW]

Nate Oats brought Brandon Miller to his Pre-SEC Tournament News Conference today.

It has all the appearances of something they HAD to do,not WANTED to do-they know Brandon Miller will have to answer questions from the National Media at both the SEC Tournament and the NCAA Tournament so they brought him before the local Media for a "trial run" to see if any of his answers need some "tweaking" before arriving in Nashville.

https://www.tmz.com/2023/03/08/alabama-star-brandon-miller-calls-jamea-harris-death-heartbreaking/

 

[WEDWDW]

It was reported yesterday that Darius Miles and Michael Davis had been indicted by a Grand Jury for Capital Murder in the death of Jamea Jonae Harris WHILE Alabama was playing Mississippi State in Nashville in the SEC Tournament.

Just surreal the 2 events happening at the same moment.

https://www.si.com/college/2023/03/10/alabama-nate-oats-brandon-miller-murder-case-awkward-season

I saw that the GoFundMe started by Jamea Harris' Mother has a whopping 25 thousand dollars in it.

There are Alabama fans that carry that much money around for spending money.

If Alabama fans cared anything at all about the death of Jamea Jonae Harris that GoFundMe would be well into 6 figures,if not approaching 7 figures.

They don't.

But their heads in the sand,please make it go away,don't want to talk about it,don't want to think about it stance has for ever left a stain on the entire University of Alabama.

 

[WEDWDW]

Don't know if this is really a Bama fan or someone trolling Bama fans,but either way this was extremely distasteful at the SEC Tournament yesterday.

 

[WEDWDW]

I wish all Alabama fans would read the New York Post article(excerpt below)before they roll into Birmingham(Jamea Harris' Hometown) to continue their guilt-free magical Season.





About 200 miles south of Bridgestone Arena DeCarla Cotton’s Friday evening started with rush-hour Taco Bell. Kaine, her 5-year-old grandson, wanted a chicken quesadilla and a blue raspberry slushie.
“For you,” she told him, “I will get in traffic tonight.”
Almost two months ago, Cotton had spent a few days thinking about how to tell the boy his mother was gone. She would muster the words, then feel a wave of anger and sorrow about how her daughter died, then flee into the next room before Kaine saw her crying. She’s an angel now, she eventually told him.
No, Cotton said, Oats hasn’t reached out. Nor has anyone from Alabama. Doing so now, she said, wouldn’t feel genuine. “Everybody has seen the way he’s talked about what he knew, what he didn’t know,” Cotton said. “It’s a whole mess. Just a mess.”
Those surrounding the Alabama basketball program insist it’s their job to protect a young person’s future, to prevent the events and uncertainty of Jan. 15 to stain a life permanently. The same is true in this home outside Birmingham, where Cotton has temporarily suspended her grief amid worries that Kaine will grow up angry and resentful.
“Just his future, just overall,” she said. “I worry about how he’s going to cope in the years to come. He’s small, and you kind of explain things visually, but I know there’ll be a day he’s old enough to go to Google and try to figure out things on his own.”
She lets out a long sigh.
“You want to say the right things to him as a small child,” Cotton continues, “but you want him to understand.”


Jamea Jonae Harris and Kaine pose in a family photo.
It’s almost impossible, she admits, given the boy’s age and the circumstances surrounding his mother’s death. Earlier that day, Cotton’s husband, Kelvin Heard, had the news on television when a photo of Jamea came on the screen during a report about Alabama’s basketball team. Cotton whisked Kaine out of the room and told Heard to turn off the TV.
Among other reasons, Cotton said, she doesn’t want Kaine to blame basketball. He used to talk about being a ninja when he grows up, but now he says he wants to play hoops. Cotton said she doesn’t want him to associate the game with tragedy, even though that will be the theme of whatever NCAA tournament run Alabama may or may not make.
Since it was Friday, Cotton let Kaine stay up later than usual and play Roblox on his tablet. When the game ended and Cotton locked the device, Jamea’s picture came up as the wallpaper. Kaine’s eyes filled with tears, and his grandmother wrapped him in a hug.
“I miss my mom,” he said.
“She’s still in our hearts,” Cotton told him.
Then she handed Kaine his light-up teddy bear in an angel costume, suggesting that if he gave it a hug, his mother might feel it. He hugged it, then his grandmother, and she tucked him into bed with a kiss on the cheek.
“We always say we’re going to be brave,” she told him, the last thing the boy heard as another long, emotional day ended.

 

[GAN]

NYP?!? Kind of hard to take that seriously…. You gotta do better than that!

 

[WEDWDW]

It will be 2 months tomorrow that Jamea Harris was killed.

Alabama will play their opening game Thursday to a rapturous crowd of fans at Birmingham's Legacy Arena while just a few miles away a little boy misses his Mother.

To be fair,it is not just Alabama and its fans that just want the tragedy to go away,it is also Charlie Baker,Greg Sankey,Rece Davis,Jay Bilas,Greg Gumbel,etc.,etc..

It is obvious they want it mentioned as little as possible-March Madness is what they wait for all year.it is the centerpiece of their lives each year.

I love it as well,but I just know that every time Alabama takes the floor or is talked about,I am going to think about Jamea and Kaine.

After reading articles like the one below I just don't see how anybody can party down like it is a normal year and not give the tragedy a second thought.

I just can't wrap my head around that.

• Joseph Goodman | jgoodman@al.com

Unexpected tears of anger burned through the eyes of Kelvin Heard on Saturday.

He was in Publix on Green Springs Avenue in Homewood. Wine aisle.

The stepfather of Jamea Harris just wanted to buy a bottle to take the edge off. Even at the supermarket, though, Kelvin couldn’t escape trauma caused by the men’s basketball team representing the University of Alabama.

This is a tough story. It involves those infamous T-shirts that showed up in Nashville at the SEC Tournament. The family of Harris saw them. Heard talked to me about it over the phone on my way back from Nashville. The effect of this controversial Alabama basketball team turned ugly there, and it hurt the surviving family of Harris back home in Birmingham.

This team is a flashpoint. No way around it. Alabama won the tournament over the weekend, but the image of the university continued to lose respectability when two scumbags showed up to Bridgestone Arena wearing T-shirts celebrating the death of Harris. Harris was killed in a shooting on Jan.15 involving Alabama basketball players.

I still can’t believe this actually happened, but there were two cretins at Saturday’s game between Alabama and Missouri who wore University of Alabama T-shirts that had these gruesome words printed on the backs: “Killin’ our way through the SEC in ‘23.”

Gross. Deplorable. Unforgivable.

Who were those guys? Well, my colleague John Talty confronted them about the T-shirts, and the cowards wouldn’t identify themselves. One of them got angry. They said they were Alabama fans. I’m not saying they should be doxxed, but shaming these bad actors publicly could help prevent more problems in the future.

When Kelvin was in Publix trying to pick out a bottle of wine for his wife, there was an Alabama fan on the phone doing the same thing. The fan was laughing about the T-shirts with whomever was on the other end of the conversation.

“It’s like he knew the people who wore the T-shirts,” Heard said.

It took everything for Heard to keep his cool. What would you do in that situation if Harris was your step-daughter and you were now raising Harris’ son? Kelvin somehow walked away.

“I wanted to tell him that Jamea was shot in the face,” Heard said. “Her beautiful face. She would be alive if Alabama basketball players had made different decisions that night. And this guy was laughing about it.”

It makes me angry, of course, but it also shows the effects that this team is having on people. I can’t tell you how many nasty emails and tweets I’ve received over columns about Alabama basketball over the last few weeks, but the tough topics can’t be ignored. No one enjoys talking and writing about guns and basketball, but avoiding the issues feels a lot like complicity.

Harris is dead. A family is shattered to pieces. Lives will never be the same. What were the decisions and factors that led to the moment that Harris lost her life? I’m not talking about from a legal standpoint. There is a larger topic that must be addressed, too.

Gun culture among basketball and football players can’t be brushed aside no matter how awkward it makes news conferences after games. Schools in the SEC and beyond should study what’s taking place around the Alabama basketball team, and then make sure athletes never carry firearms while on scholarship. Don’t give me the misplaced, and misguided arguments about the Second Amendment either. This isn’t about the right to bear arms. Gun culture in America takes the lives of people every day. It’s an epidemic, and athletes on TV can use their platforms to help instead of harm.

Or, at the very least, just don’t go around to the bar on The Strip with loaded guns in the backseat.

Ja Morant of the Memphis Grizzlies was recently suspended by the NBA for flashing a gun during an Instagram Live feed from a strip club. Basketball players of all ages are growing up wanting to emulate Morant for his game on the court, but his problems off the court are influential, too.

Two of the Alabama basketball players at the scene of Harris’ alleged murder are still on the team, and one of them, star player Brandon Miller, transported in his car the gun used to kill Harris, according to police. Basketball player Darius Miles was charged with capital murder for his alleged role. It was his gun, according to police, and the cops say that Miles passed it to friend Michael Davis, who then used the weapon to shoot into the automobile containing Harris.

She didn’t have to die, and Harris’ cousin in the backseat is a current student at Alabama. How do you think she feels? According to Kelvin Heard, university representatives still haven’t reached out to the family.

No matter how people want to rationalize the decisions of Alabama after the death of Harris, the cold reality is that the basketball team now represents a significant source of pain for this family. It’s following them everywhere, and they can’t avoid it. Now Alabama is in Birmingham for the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

“It’s like, what’s next?” Heard said. “It’s terrible. We live 10 minutes from the arena. I work two blocks from there.”

Birmingham is celebrating these games, and it should, but don’t forget that Birmingham was Harris’ hometown.

 

[Music City Mama]

I just don't see how anybody can party down like it is a normal year and not give the tragedy a second thought.

Who says they're not giving it a second thought? Do you know what's in the hearts and minds of the players, coaches, or fans? Are you at their team meetings to know what they discuss? I'm sure the whole situation has weighed heavily on them as evidenced by their games pre-SEC tournament. Every time I see Brandon Miller's photo posted on social media or even seeing him on the court reminds me of the terrible murder of Jamea Harris. While Brandon Miller has done a phenomenal job on the court and is undoubtedly an amazing player, without Quinerly, Sears, Bediako, and others, UA basketball would not be where they are right now -- he doesn't get ALL the credit for their success. I believe Brandon Miller should have been suspended for a couple of games initially, but that ship has sailed. That young man has not been charged with anything -- please remember that. I certainly hope you are supporting every GoFundMe set up for Jamea Harris's family because you obviously have a lot of compassion for this woman and that's commendable. But PLEASE don't say Bama fans just don't care because they're happy for their team's success. And I have no idea what you're talking about when you repeatedly state that no one is mentioning it. It's mentioned EVERY game by the commentators -- my apologies to you that they don't bring it up 5 times per half, though.