“He HAD to have known it was there”

And that is not to say that my friend Kenada Edwards is a big shot. He is a big deal, but he's not a big shot. He joins us at Not of the Scribe on Twitter.

CBSSports.com works with Gary Parrish and Matt Norlander on the Ion College Basketball Podcast, which is great, where they still discuss camel fighting and Leaky Black. All right, sir, I want to start with a heartwarming story, if you can. Yeah, I mean, we should be. And it might be stretching.

Heartwarming might be doing a lot of heavy lifting here. I don't know. Brandon Miller for Alabama's freshman, a dynamic player in a top 10, top five, maybe an NBA prospect in terms of the draft. And unfortunately for him, he was in the wrong place and responded to a text request from a teammate named Darius Miles. Hey, will you please go bring will you please bring me my handgun? And that gun was used. Remember, it's not Miller's gun. That gun was used in the murder of, what, a 23 year old mother. And Nate Oates, the coach for Alabama, knew about it.

Didn't do anything about it. And Miller has not missed time. And he was a great player last night. I watched some of the game last night against South Carolina. He was unstoppable.

Forty one points, including the game winning bucket in overtime. And I don't like I don't want to disparage the disparage the kid because it's not his decision to allow him to play. It was a bad decision to bring Darius Miles the gun, a horrible decision, which the head coach and the AD just went, well, boys will be boys, I guess. So I'll I'll leave it there and let you pick up with the conversation. The problem I have more like you, I have more problems with the grown ups. Yeah.

Then I do the kid. However, this is one of those scenarios where he had to have known the gun was in the car. And depending on if you read the lawyer's statement and the lawyer said that he never knew. But it's implausible that he that he never knew that gun was there because it was tucked in the back. Again, according to the lawyer, according to Brandon Miller's lawyer, this gun was tucked in the back seat and hidden under some clothes and something like that. And at least if not the first text, he didn't know. But the second time where he comes to bring him the gun.

Yeah, he knew. I think that even if you are 19, even if you are 20, I think we all have this idea of, yo, you don't have to break like the concept of saying no still exists if you're 19 or 20. There's a personal responsibility there that for me makes me really uncomfortable because it makes me question is decision making on this. Then we get to the Nate Oates part and then we get to Puscaloosa PD, possibly, where this is like, unfortunately, this is Brandon Miller, we're talking about a top five, like you said, top five, top 10 draft prospect in the upcoming loaded draft. We're also talking about probably the freshman of the year in Alabama. If this happens in November and not January, we're probably looking at this differently. But we're talking about someone we're talking about at least the school enabling him, if not other factors, enabling him.

And if you want any kind of any kind of proof that sometimes these cops look the other way, go look at Waco and our brows. So like I, I feel very uncomfortable because this kid should have at least even if it's not for, he might've been involved. It should have, if there's a way you could have suspended him for a game because you're up, you're up three, four games in the sec and you could have suspended him and been like, Hey, look, we're not going to call it what it is. It's double secret probation, whatever, what have you.

We'll call it some kind of unknown thing. Oh, you were late to class. And our code of conduct says you can't be late to class or something like that.

You just lie to us, but instead you lie the other way and it only benefits you. So at this point, like I looked at someone like NATO to mind, you just got a contract that says two, three weeks ago. Two, three weeks ago. Yeah. I look at him kind of funny. I look at the AD kind of funny.

I look at everybody kind of funny. And it's just at this point, all we're doing is rubbing salt in the wound of a family to me, a Harrison family who I and the father who I believe just, just released a article and just talked to Alabama.com about how this is just hurting them even more. So all this recklessness and this, a lot of this could have been avoided if we had just decided, you know what? We're going to be responsible adults.

Yeah. Again, I, I agree with you, like in, in all, in all areas here, it, to me, it's, it's about the adults, Greg Byrne, the AD at Alabama, Nate Oates, the head coach and NATO statement where, yeah, he was in the wrong place to run. Well, what, what are you talking about? He, he, he delivered what ended up being the murder weapon to a teammate. By the way, they had no, I mean, for obvious reasons, they had no problem just immediately kicking Darius Miles off the team. They removed themselves from Darius Miles so fast, not the Darius Miles, by the way, played in the NBA. There's no, there's no relation between those two. Cause when I first I'm like, wait a second, Darius Miles. Is there some relation there? There's no relation between those two guys. So look, I, I, I want to I want to move off from this topic, but to me, the whole, I was stunned, especially when Nate Oates came out and he said, I want to walk this back.

Good luck. He didn't walk it back. He said, maybe it wouldn't have understood. He did not walk that back.

Let's, let's stop that right now. He said essentially in that second statement, maybe you misunderstood me. No, no, we didn't.

So that was like, you got to remember that part. He didn't walk anything back. He thought we misunderstood. All right, let's get to some other college basketball with my friend, not of the scribe at, not of the scribe on Twitter.

So I know that Gary and Matt have discussed this and I know you guys have probably talked about it. The ACC is not vintage. It is not a classically great year, nor was last year. But did you realize that both North Carolina State and UNC had identical wins yesterday as they each picked up quad three victories? Yeah, well, well, well, well, wait, wait. Unfortunately, wake is a five three victory due to basically not enjoying to shoot themselves in the foot.

And Notre Dame, if they had any sort of rebounding, like we would be talking about the eulogy of the UNC basketball team right now. Correct. But they're both quad three wins. They are, they are. They are. Did they seem the same to you? See, this is a loaded question.

I know what you're, I know where you're going with it. I do know they don't seem the same. They don't seem, they don't seem the same.

They're not the same, but at the same, at the same point, I do, I really do want to respect weight here, but at the same point they have shot themselves so much in the foot. And unfortunately this, this goes into the larger topic. I know you want to talk about, which is the ACC. And it makes it so hard to give them the benefit of the doubt. We have all these ACC teams that are willingly shooting themselves in the foot, either by non-conference scheduling and, or losing games that they shouldn't. Hello, Virginia. And at some point it becomes a point, it becomes one of those things.

Like I understand that we don't necessarily expect 18 to 22 year olds to handle their business, but at some point you got to handle your business. You got to handle the light work and this conference for better or worse through the black of non-conference scheduling, not getting creative with non-conference scheduling, a lot of this are self-inflicted problems and not necessarily just a metrics problem. So let me ask this question because, well, I actually, I think unfortunately it is a metrics problem because we have five horrifically bad teams in the league and it doesn't take that much to drag the overall metric down a little bit for like the ACC. Virginia plays at best two home quad one games.

That's it. Cause there's only two other teams that if you get on your floor would be quad one wins. And that's temporary probably as Miami and Duke are the only two. Miami is 27th, Duke is 30th. So we're not even that far from both of those being quad two wins.

That would sort of be unfair for Virginia to have like no home game quad one. And it's entirely based on that metric on the net, which I know is a lot of different factors and all that. But I'm saying that the bottom of the league drags the rest of the league down enough to where all of these numbers ultimately are skewed.

I don't, I don't disagree with you, but I also think that this is one of those. Yeah, but you knew that this was going to be a problem. Like a lot of these schools knew that this was going to be a problem. And even if you don't feel bad, even if you try to excuse the historically bad season that we're having in Louisville, like Kenny Payne should have gotten on his grind. Like you start looking at some of these schools, specifically historian Dennis Gates that went out there, got on their grind, got into the transfer portal, got better in one year. So like I, when you see teams like Missouri and recruiting to Missouri and essentially using your NIL deal to get players in there, it kind of rings hollow that you can't necessarily recruit to Atlanta using NIL.

I think that's where I'm at. That's where I'm at with like these teams being historically bad. It is what it is. But, but so Louisville being historically bad is Louisville being bad, Florida state being out of nowhere. I mean, the way that that program has been over the last decade, I can't say like I, Florida state has a case though, because Florida state got through by the NCAA over Bob on them, like point blank period.

That kid should have sat a game or two, not 16 games. Florida state has a case to where, yo, you guys kind of, you guys kind of hosed us and screwed up our season well before we even had a chance. So I will give Florida state the benefit of the doubt. But it's not even about individual teams at this, you know, at the bottom of the league. The, they, Louisville, Florida state, Georgia tech, Notre Dame, Boston college being bad, should not reflect poorly on Wake Forest, Clemson, Pitt, you know, UNs, it shouldn't reflect poorly on them. But unfortunately, because of the way the sport is run at this point, it does. And that's the, and so I played this mental exercise earlier, and I want to ask you an NBA thing.

So we're going to have to get through this quickly so I can get, have time to do this. If Georgia loses to Missouri, a four and six Missouri team in like the second week in November, right before they have a game against, I don't know, Kennesaw state, and then their closing game against Georgia tech. If Georgia were to go to Missouri and lose to a four and six team, how would the SEC media talk about it? Well, it's funny you mentioned that. Now, question in this thought exercise, and I hate to answer a question with a question. Have they beaten Alabama yet?

No, they didn't play Alabama because they're waiting until the end of the season to play Alabama. Netflix, Amazon prime, HBO, Showtime. Do you feel like your streaming subscriptions are out of control? Why not start the new year off right and cancel the ones you're not using. Enter the Rocket Money app. Rocket Money organizes your subscriptions by due date and notifies you when something is coming up. From there, decide whether to keep it or cancel it with just a tap. To find out more about Rocket Money, go to rocketmoney.com slash offer, or download the Rocket Money app from the Apple app or Google play stores.

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Choose wisely choose Wendy's two for six for a limited time price participation may vary in US Wendy's on the card only single item at regular price. Oh, the SEC media would have spun it. You know what your thought exercise work because they wouldn't, they would have spun it. You're right about that. Oh, so deep.

Oh man, it's a minefield every day. You take your, you take your, you know, your, your record in your hands. I don't want to make more out of it than it is. So Virginia loses to Boston College. And because we're practical people who cover the ACC, a lot of people said it, what a bad look it was for the ACC. I actually think if anything, it's just a bad look for Virginia. Why does that reflect on NC state? Why does that reflect on Duke or, or Miami? It's just a Virginia issue.

It's not anybody else. So that's my problem is that we look at that and we go, Oh man, what the ACC really is down. I'm like, what does that have to do with anything? Well, and to be fair, you have plenty of evidence because like, if we're really honest about this, Virginia has been teetering for a little bit. They almost became the Clemson member. Now mind you, of the losses that they had, you much rather look a loss to BC than I don't know Louisville, which almost happens.

I know. Oh no, no, no, no question about it. They were trailing for the first 30 minutes of that game. They were down to Louisville.

We're all gone. What is going on with UVA? Let me ask you a one NBA thing. My friend Kanata Edwards, and by the way, the NBA returns to the courts tonight after the, after the All-Star break. And we'll talk again about the association down the road.

And I, you and I may have talked about this already. Kevin Durant, no longer with the Brooklyn Nets, same with Kyrie Irving. And I'm not sure that they are not better today as a team than they were then.

And I look at their too deep, if you will. Spencer Dinwiddie, Mikael Bridges, Cam Johnson, Dorian Finney-Smith, Nick Claxton, Ben Simmons, Cam Thomas, Joe Harris, Patty Mills, Seth Curry, Edmund Sumner. They've got 10 or 11 legit players on their team.

They do. They just lack a center. The problem, the problem with what they're going to, they're going to be similar to what Toronto is.

They may be a better experiment, which is what if for the five guys we threw out, there were six steps, six, three to six, nine. And then the other guys, the center, like they're an interesting experiment into what that's going to be. Now, mind you, they're also in a position to where if you have a young star or you have a disgruntled young star, they might have just enough assets in the summer to where they may be one of those spots is like, okay, all I got to do, if you're a young star, all I got to do is score. Everybody else can defend.

Everybody else can shoot. That means the patient, the space, the space is going to be there. Like they're very interesting experiment. I want to see what happens with them because if they actually stay top six, that's a very intriguing destination to some, because someone's going to be like, look, I'm going to have a really, really good coach and Josh Vaughn, who probably should have been the coach the whole time. I'm going to have a whole bunch of guys that will do the dirty work and defend. And all I'm missing kind of is a center. But for right now, I think they're going to be at least in the playing and for rebuilding everything on the fly in the way that they have.

You can't really ask for much more than that right now. And I think they have pieces. I think they could be dangerous in the East. I know they don't have enough size. They're going to Nick Claxton better stay out of foul trouble.

That's that's all I got. Or just play Ben Simmons at center. They don't need him to do anything else. Well, you're going to stop that.

They don't need him. I know I've been saying that for how long? Yeah, no, no, I'm giving you a ride on that one. And look, it's it's it's for me, it's always been if you can't shoot, you can't help or if you or if you refuse to shoot, we actually don't even know if he can't shoot or not.

He just refuses. Canada Edwards at not of the scribe on Twitter. My friend, I appreciate your time. Absolutely. We got to talk about spring training next time. All right. You got it. We'll do it.

I mean, you got it. Take care not to appreciate his time. Wendy's two for six dollars lets you mix and match some of our best items like Dave single with a 10 piece crispy nuts, medium strawberry lemonade with a spicy chicken sandwich, spicy chicken with a Dave single Dave single with a strawberry lemonade, strawberry lemonade, strawberry lemonade. If you're into that chicken, Sam, crispy nuts, crispy nuts, strawberry lemonade.

Dave's Dave's nuts, nuts, Sam, Sam. Pick what you want at a price you want. Choose wisely. Choose Wendy's two for six for a limited time. Price and participation may vary in U.S. Wendy's. Solid card only. Single item at regular price.