Should Alabama fans be rooting for a deep March run? | College Basketball Enquirer
Yahoo Sports’ Dan Wetzel, and Sports Illustrated’s Pat Forde and Ross Dellenger debate how Alabama fans and administrators should feel about the potential of a deep March run through the NCAA Tournament amid controversy over Brandon Miller’s connection to murder in Tuscaloosa.
Video transcript
PAT FORDE: I said in the column, if you were vaguely uneasy about Kansas winning last year, how are you going to feel this year when you watch Brandon Miller and Nate Oates go up the stairs on the ladder with the scissors?
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DAN WETZEL: If you're Bama right now, do you want to win the national title? Or are you like-- I'm not talking about the fan that just literally doesn't care. And you can scold Alabama fans. But if it was your team, they'd be fans of that too. I mean, fans are-- I don't know how people who live in a town where the Bama basketball team created a shootout that had left someone dead cheers for the team.
But that's how it works. Fans are short for fanatics. This is what they do. But other than that, if you're an administrator, if you're the president of Alabama, do you want to win this title? Or are you just like, man, nice second-round loss and let's get out of here?
PAT FORDE: [LAUGHS] That's a really good question.
DAN WETZEL: Or make the Final Four, and then it's like "Good Morning America" time.
PAT FORDE: Oh, are you kidding? Can you imagine that week of the Final Four? You get in on a Saturday or Sunday, you don't play again till the next Saturday. That's going to be the entire discussion, and it's not just going to be a bunch of sports hacks like us. That's where you're going to have CNN and Fox News and "Good Morning America" and NBC and ABC all going to be there.
DAN WETZEL: They're already on it now but, yeah, it gets even bigger. No, gun-- school shooting advocacies and those types of things.
PAT FORDE: Oh, yeah.
DAN WETZEL: I mean, it just becomes this massive thing. I don't know. I mean, if I'm the president at this point-- maybe you did not know what you were doing when you blindly walked into this and believed a lot of stuff. But at this point, it'd be like I think-- man, if Iowa State locks us down in that second round. I don't even know if Iowa State is going to make it, but--
PAT FORDE: Yeah. No, that's actually pretty good, Dan. That could be a second-round matchup.
DAN WETZEL: Right? Well, I mean, it's like-- there's also the bit if you're Brandon Miller, do you just-- I don't know what he can do. He's going to be the second or third pick in the draft. He's done enough to do that.
Is it just like, OK, this is over for me at Alabama? I mean, clearly, he wants to play and win a title. But that's a secondary thought. Does he want to go through this?
ROSS DELLENGER: Well, has this impacted his NBA draft status at all?
DAN WETZEL: If it does, he'll drop to like four.
ROSS DELLENGER: Yeah.
DAN WETZEL: Yeah, I mean--
PAT FORDE: Yeah, I would-- it will be one of those things where whoever decides they want to draft him at three or four or five or whatever will say, we did a lot of due diligence. We talked to a lot of people.
ROSS DELLENGER: Yeah, right.
PAT FORDE: Basically we just know--
ROSS DELLENGER: Did our own investigation.
PAT FORDE: Yeah.
DAN WETZEL: It's really more--
PAT FORDE: He's a hellacious player.
DAN WETZEL: --is this Brandon Miller's character? Or did he make a dumb mistake?
PAT FORDE: Right.
DAN WETZEL: And so I get that. For Alabama, it's we're forever linked to this decision. So that's why I think it's-- but whatever. If they're going to pick them, they're going to pick them. It doesn't matter to me. I don't know.
It's like a debate. Do you want the negative publicity, but, hey, you win? Do you want that visual of your fans cheering or is it-- because this isn't like-- I mean, it was kind of funny last year Kansas winning it and awkward. But that was nothing, like whatever. And I--
PAT FORDE: I said in the column, if you were vaguely uneasy about Kansas winning last year, how are you going to feel this year when you watch Brandon Miller and Nate Oates go up the stairs on the ladder with the scissors?