Alabama basketball won’t have one of its top players for the foreseeable future. Crimson Tide head coach Nate Oats said Monday that Aden Holloway will be suspended indefinitely, after the guard was arrested on felony drug charges Monday morning.
Speaking on the “Hey Coach” radio show on the Crimson Tide Sports Network, Oats discussed the situation.
“We’ve got standards in our program,” Oats said. “We’ve got ways we’ve held our guys accountable. We try to keep everything in-house. Obviously, some of the situations you can’t, this is one of those. Situation is a little different. When I found out this morning, when we found out what was going on this morning. I found out this morning. I guess it all went down this morning.
“We had to suspend him pending the investigation by the UA office of student conduct. We’re disappointed in his behavior. With that said, we still love him. He’s still our guy. We’re going to get him the help that he needs, and we’re going to continue to help him whatever way we can.”
Holloway was arrested Monday and charged with first degree possession of marijuana, and failure to affix a tax stamp. Tuscaloosa police said Alabama narcotics task force agents found more than a pound of marijuana, paraphernalia and cash in a residence in the 400 block of 30th Avenue East before arresting Holloway.
Alabama athletics released a statement later on Monday saying Holloway was “removed from campus” pending an Office of Student Conduct investigation. Oats said on the radio show that the Crimson Tide is preparing to play without him in the tournament, which begins Friday with a matchup against Hofstra in Tampa.
“I thought our guys, at the same time, you know Aden’s one of our guys and everybody wants to wrap their arms around him, everybody makes mistakes in life,” Oats said. “But they also understand that we’ve gotta move on and we’ve got a whole other group of guys, and the team’s got to go play Friday. So, thought we did a good job of that this morning, kind of addressing the situation, what we currently knew at the time, and got our guys focused in practice.”
Oats also singled out a few players for praise, including Latrell Wrightsell Jr.
“I thought Trelly was a really good leader,” Oats said. “Thought he stepped up, made some good statements. I think Labaron (Philon) was good. I think we’re seeing the best version of Taylor (Bol Bowen) we’ve seen all year.”
Alabama and Hofstra will tip off at 2:15 p.m. CT Friday in Tampa. TruTV has the broadcast.
