Auburn basketball reporter Justin Lee of the Opelika-Auburn News tagged SEC commissioner Greg Sankey and Alabama Athletic Director Greg Byrne in a tweet from AL.com’s Mike Rodak detailing the wildly irreverent pregame routine of Crimson Tide basketball star Brandon Miller with his teammates.
Where are the grownups? @Greg_Byrne @GregSankey https://t.co/6sshuwBoPf
— Justin Lee (@ByJustinLee) February 25, 2023
Miller famously provided the murder weapon that was used in the killing of a 23-year-old woman in Tuscaloosa on The Strip, a business and nightlife district near the University of Alabama. His teammate Darius Miles was charged with capital murder along with a 20-year-old student who wasn’t a part of any Alabama athletic program. The weapon was owned by Miles, who has since been dismissed from the team. Miller’s teammate Jaden Bradley was also at the scene.
Lee clearly objects to Miller seemingly rubbing it in that he got away with being so heavily involved in the death of an innocent woman. How he hasn’t been suspended — and that he was even defended by Crimson Tide head coach Nate Oats for being at the “wrong place at the wrong time” — is one of the biggest questions the NCAA is facing in the aftermath of this tragedy.
Alabama fans have no equivalent Auburn basketball transgression to point to
A common refrain from Alabama fans is to go at the Auburn athletic department for the hiring of Hugh Freeze, which is a false equivalency of epic proportions. Another is go after Auburn basketball head coach Bruce Pearl for his various violations in the past.
Sure, Pearl did have recruiting violations at Tennessee and then later again on the Plains involving former assistant coach Chuck Person. And then there was the Sharife Cooper saga which saw him ineligible for the first portion of the 2020-21 season — one lost to the program’s self-imposed postseason ban from the Person violations.
But there’s a clear moral disparity when someone’s life is lost.