Nate Oats Addresses Aden Holloway's Arrest, Removal from Campus

Alabama basketball standout Aden Holloway was arrested on Monday morning, and was charged with first-degree possession of marijuana and failure to affix a tax stamp.

The West Alabama Narcotics Task Force conducted a search of a residence in the 400 block of 30th Avenue East and recovered more than a pound of marijuana, paraphernalia and cash. He was transported to Tuscaloosa County jail on Monday morning and his bond was set at $5,000 before being bonded out at 10:45 a.m. CT.

Alabama head coach Nate Oats addressed the situation the 'Hey Coach' radio show on Monday evening.

"Look, 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, and this is one of those. Situation is a little different 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 certainly disappointed in his behavior. That being said, we still love him. He's still our guy. We're helping him get him the help that he needs and we'll continue to help him whatever way we can. As far as our team goes, I thought we had a great practice. We're preparing to play without him this weekend."

"...I thought our guys, while at the same time, Aden is one of our guys and everybody wants to wrap their arms around him and love him. Everybody makes mistakes in life. But they also understand we’ve got to move on. We’ve got a whole other group of guys and the team’s got to go play Friday.

“I thought we did a good job of that this morning, kind of addressing the situation, what we currently knew at the time. Got our guys focused on practice. I thought we had a really good practice.“

This news comes just four days before 4-seed Alabama takes on 13-seed Hofstra in the first round of the 2026 NCAA Tournament. Holloway's availability for March Madness is unknown at this time, but based on the quote above, it's very unlikely that he plays on Friday in Tampa.

The University of Alabama also released a statement regarding Holloway a couple of hours before Oats' quote.

“The University is aware of the allegations and is working to gather more information," the statement read. "The student has been removed from campus pending further investigation by the UA Office of Student Conduct.”

Holloway was named to the All-SEC Third Team on March 9. He earned a starting role after being the Crimson Tide's sixth-man in 2024-25, and he's certainly made the most of it. The junior finished the regular season 14th in the conference in points per game (16.8 on 48.0 percent from the field) and eighth in assists per game (3.9).

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