Several days ago came the startling revelation that Brandon Miller brought the murder weapon to the crime scene in January's murder in Tuscaloosa, at the request of one of the accused killers. Since then Alabama's played three games and Miller has played in all three; Alabama's coach has said Miller was in the "wrong place at the wrong time" and wouldn't be held out, and indeed the police said there was "nothing they could charge him with."
Still, observers wondered how Miller would respond to the pressure of playing after the announcement. Would he be tentative, nervous, a bit shook, perhaps? The answer was clearly "no" at South Carolina as Miller scored a career-hight 41 points in the overtime win. He shot 6 of 13 from the 3-point line, 8 of 12 from 2-point range, and 7 of 8 from the charity stripe.
Before the next game Miller was "patted-down" by a teammate before the game, in a ritual the players had done before but one that prompted an apology from coach Nate Oats, saying it was in bad taste and wouldn't happen again. Apparently it was meant as a "TSA style" patdown and signified that Miller was "ready for takeoff."
Again Miller had a good game at home vs. Arkansas. Though not a career-best like last time, Miller had 24 points. He was only 1 for 6 in 3s but his 7 of 9 2s and all 7 free throws. Alabama escaped with an 86-83 win over the Razorbacks.
Coach Oats says that Miller has cooperated with the investigation in every way, but a few things might not add up in Miller's testimony. The police clearly imply that the accused killer texted Miller asking him to bring his gun to him. But Miller's attorney says Miller never saw it because it was under a pile of clothes, and didn't know it was in his car. The two facts don't jibe, and the logical conclusion is that Miller put the gun under the clothes when he brought it downtown to the accused killer, which is what one would do when transporting a gun: hide it. But no one seems eager to push the matter in any way, and one wonders if a normal person would be subjected to more scrutiny. Miller's lawyers have claimed the accused killer left the gun in Miller's car without Miller's knowledge, hidden under the clothes, which is a bit odd to say the least. Miller's car was also blocking the car of the victim when he parked it, though police say they don't know if that was intentional or not.
In any case, Miller obviously didn't participate in the violence itself, and that seems good enough for Alabama officials. In his third game since the controversy, Miller had 17 points in an overtime win vs. rival Auburn. He again hit only 1 of 6 3s and this time only 2 of 6 2s, but he hit 10 of 11 free throws, clearly not the hallmark of someone who has a burden on his mind over anything. Either Miller is an extremely cool customer, or he's confident he did nothing wrong. Perhaps both.
But while Miller has performed at least as well as he has all season, Alabama as a team has been shaky to say the least. Beating South Carolina in overtime is an extremely weak performance, and while beating Arkansas and Auburn is tough for any team, Alabama was lucky to get out of both of them with a win when normally they should win comfortably.
To put it in terms of the Strength power rating, Alabama is overall the #2 team in the country, but for the last three games they've played like the #82 team. Here's how it looks on their full-season-to-date chart:
The drop-off to game #28 (South Carolina) is immense, and it was their lowest-rated game they didn't lose. The Arkansas win was about equal to the Tennessee loss, and the Auburn win was a bit worse (they were down by 17 at one point). The last two games weren't awful and ultimately, they got the win all three times, but all three were well below their full-season average performance (the green bar in game "0"). In Ken Pomeroy's ratings the team has fallen from #14 to #19 on offense and from #3 to #6 on defense, a significant drop for just three games.
So it would seem that while Brandon Miller isn't concerned with the current events—or at least doesn't show it on the court—his teammates are not thriving under the scrutiny nearly as well.
The situation is fluid and facts are being introduced every day, and different sources have different takes, so it's hard to know what to make of Miller's actions and whether he has anything to answer for. The police say no, so that will probably be the final word. Maybe he should have done something differently, but most likely, he couldn't possibly have known at all what was about to happen.
Yet although it seems he has shaken off any pressure added by the events, his team is not performing to its usual level for whatever reason, and it's too much of a coincidence to say the revelations have nothing to do with it. When player Darius Miles was charged with the murders back in January and dismissed from the team, the other players didn't really miss a step in performance.
But something about the Miller revelation was different. Maybe they're worried about the pressure on him, and in doing so, took the pressure on themselves? Hard to say what is going on. It's also possible that a 3-game sample is too small to draw conclusions. But it's a pretty sharp drop-off at the exact same time. Bama player Jaden Bradley was also at the scene of the murder (in his own car), and he's made only 3 of 17 attempts since then. Two Bama players were ejected from the Auburn game for a verbal altercation. It's not uncommon to see two players—one from each team—ejected, but two players from the same team? When playing at home?
Will Alabama recover their national-title-level gameplay in time for the NCAA tournament? We'll see. So far they've kept winning and look like they'll be a 1-seed. But if this drop-off in performance continues, they'll be hard-pressed to make a deep tournament run later on in March.
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