Nate Oats updates Brandon Miller's injury status entering Round of 32

Nate Oats must be feeling good about Brandon Miller‘s availability for the Round of 32.

The Alabama star and SEC Player of the Year was slightly hampered against Texas A&M Corpus Christi, and didn’t score a single point. Still, the Crimson Tide more than took care of business, defeating their opponent by a score of 96-75.

However, that didn’t mean Oats wanted to see Miller miss any more playing time, as they road gets tougher from here on out. With a second round game against Maryland on Saturday, the Alabama leader revealed some positive news on Miller, stating that he’s ready and roaring to go against the Terrapins.

“Alabama’s Brandon Miller (groin) did not go through contact drills on Friday in practice, but is still expected to play in Saturday’s game against Maryland, per Nate Oats,” tweeted Jon Rothstein of CBS Sports. “Miller only played 19 minutes in Thursday’s game versus Texas A&M CC. Averages 19.1 PPG and 8.2 RPG.”

That’s good news for Alabama faithful, and anyone who picked the Crimson Tide to make a deep run in their bracket pool. Nate Oats’ squad will take the floor at 9:40 p.m. ET on Saturday.

Nate Oats raves about Alabama’s depth after dominating despite quiet game from Brandon Miller

Meanwhile, Nate Oats raved about his team’s depth following their victory in the Round of 64, as the Crimson Tide were able to put on a show without the aforementioned Miller scoring a single point.

“Shows we’re deep,” Oats said of his depth scoring after the game. “We have a lot of options. A lot of talented players.

“You look at who is coming off our bench. Nimari Burnett is really talented. Rylan Griffen is super talented. Jaden Bradley is coming off the bench now. Two McDonald’s All-Americans with Jaen and Nimari. Nick Pringle, you see what he’s able to do. You go down the list. Dom Welch and Noah Gurley have been really good players at different schools where they came from before they got here.”

Moreover, Nick Pringle led the way for the entire Crimson Tide team off the bench with 19 points and 15 rebounds while shooting 8 of 10 from the field. Nimari Burnett also notched douvbe figure scoring with 11 points. SEC Co-Sixth Man of the Year Jahvon Quinerly, who started the game, had 13 points.

In total, the Alabama bench scored 49 of its 96 points, a remarkable display of the team’s depth. The extra rest the player gain from being able to rotate so much will be huge for the Crimson Tide as well heading into their second round game against Maryland on Saturday.

“To have the amount of talent that you have on the bench and still have the chemistry, and guys are always ready, even if they don’t play heavy minutes,” Oats said. “That speaks more to the character of the guys on the bench.

“It’s great in an NCAA Tournament game we were able to get these guys. Look at the minutes of the bench: 21 minutes, 21 minutes, 21 minutes, 18 minutes. 19 minutes from Gurley and then 14 minutes. Able to get that many minutes off the bench is nice, because we got to turn around and play in less than 48 hours. Nice we were able to get that many minutes off the bench.”

On3’s Peter Warren contributed to this article.