Nate Oats Responds to Bucky McMillan and Bruce Pearl 'With Love'

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. -- Alabama basketball has had no shortage of news in 2026, despite sitting in the middle of the SEC standings and just outside the AP Top 25 at the moment. The Crimson Tide is on a three-game winning streak, but played its first game after Charles Bediako was ruled ineligible this past week against the Ole Miss Rebels.

Alabama head coach Nate Oats complimented Ole Miss head coach Chris Beard for showing Bediako kindness in the wake of receiving discouraging news, but the story didn't end there. Texas A&M head coach Bucky McMillan wondered to his local media the fairness of the situation, given that his Aggies were one of five SEC programs to play against Bediako and the other programs in the league will play Alabama without the seven-foot post man.

Former Auburn coach Bruce Pearl took things a bit further on TNT after Bediako scored in double-figures against his son Stevens' Tigers.

"What it tells me is that Nate doesn't really care about the SEC. He doesn't care about the NCAA," Pearl said. "You're going to care about your student-athletes? That's fine. But you remember this conference, and you remember the NCAA. What about the rest of the teams? What about the rest of the players? Why should those five teams have had to play against an ineligible player? I think it was selfish, and I think it was wrong," Pearl said.

Oats opted to take the high road on Friday as his team prepares for the second game without Bediako, claiming McMillan's comments were taken out of context and refusing to acknowledge the elder Pearl's words.

"It's a good thing I read my Bible every morning," Oats said. "So I just read James about how to respond in certain situations like this, and you respond in love. That's the way it tells me to respond. They have their viewpoints. I have not gone back - people send me stuff, I told you guys I keep social media off my phone. I try to focus on my team and what we have control over. I have no control over what they say. I know Bucky well. I think some of his was maybe taken out of context, and I'm very familiar with things being taken out of context. I think his point was more, he felt like, according to what he told me, he felt like Charles should be able to play the whole year, was his feeling. He's got a kid playing on a temporary restraining order as well. He felt like Charles should be able to play the whole year, and he should be able to play against everybody else. Now, how do you make it right for them that Charles is not able to go against the rest of the league?

"With Bucky, to be honest with you, I respect Bucky. He called me, we talked, not just about that, but some other stuff. Bucky's a high school coach. You talk about it, I addressed the thing with Chris Beard after the game. The guys that came up, more like myself, Bucky, Beard was in the junior college ranks - the guys that came up have a love for the players that you coach. Because I didn't make any money the first 16 years. I was an assistant Division 3 coach for five years, a high school coach where my money was paid to be a teacher, not to be a coach. You went for as long as some of us have done it, and you don't make any money off the kids. You're spending a lot more money than you make, and you're in it for the kids, and for them, you've got a little different perspective. The kids are not being used by you. You're in lock with the kids. When you have an opportunity to make things right by guys that you've invested all of your time in, like guys that are more sad for Charles have a viewpoint towards Charles, we're coaching the kids. I'm going to be honest with you, everybody that's in college athletics, if you ask them why do you do what you do, probably their answer is we do it for the kids that we serve. Well, I guess we see who really does it for the kids that they serve and who doesn't. I think the response by Chris, and I think really, Bucky -- again, if you took one of two sentences out, it probably sounded the other way. In talking to him, I don't think it was meant that way. I think he feels like Charles should be playing and wish that everybody else would've had to play against us when Charles was playing was more what I got when I talked to him."

Oats elaborated and said Bediako was still practicing with the team and going to class in hopes to continue developing his game and earn his degree.