As I discussed yesterday, with the exit of three Alabama Basketball assistants for head coaching jobs, Nate Oats needs help quickly. Saturday morning a comment on a radio show, followed by a tweet, claimed Alabama was expected to hire former Creighton assistant, Preston Murphy.
The tweet was deleted not long after and for good reason. Alabama Basketball is in a not unfamiliar, tricky situation in terms of hiring Preston Murphy.
As a result of the past FBI investigation into college basketball, Murphy was levied with a two-year show-cause penalty, for accepting an improper payment from the now-famous, Christian Dawkins.
Dawkins was on one end of the infamous phone call when former LSU coach Will Wade talked about making a recruit a ‘strong-ass’ offer.
The NCAA concluded Murphy took a $6,000 bribe from Dawkins to steer players to Dawkins’ purported-to-be, financial management company.
The show-cause for Murphy ends this June. Not needing another round of adverse publicity, Alabama apparently did not want its interest in hiring Murphy to go public yet.
Murphy resigned from his assistant coaching job at Creighton in 2019. The NCAA stated,
"The violations largely stem from individuals permitting personal relationships to cloud their judgment and influence their decision-making. Specifically, the assistant coach prioritized loyalty to his friend, the agent associate; and the athletics director looked past alarming conduct based on his trust in the assistant coach."
Creighton was also penalized by the NCAA but most of the penalties were self-imposed.
As reported by ESPN, Murphy explained what happened.
"I passed a lie detector test and provided the NCAA with proof about what really happened: I did not know about Christian’s scheme, the money was never mine, I did not keep any of the money, no one asked me to do anything, I never agreed to do anything and I never even tried to arrange any sort of meeting or do anything wrong whatsoever. The truth is that I thought I was doing a favor for someone I thought was a friend by saying something that was true — that I have known Christian since he was a child — and to be handed money that belonged to Christian that I handed to him after the meeting. As the decision says, there is no evidence that I kept the money and I did not take any action. If I had known what was really going on, I never would have gone to the meeting."
It is believed Nate Oats and Preston Murphy have a long-standing, close connection. Murphy was a star guard at Rhode Island, before playing professionally in Europe for four seasons. Multiple sources describe him as a very good coach and an outstanding recruiter.
Murphy seems to be a great fit for Alabama Basketball – except of course, that Alabama will take another public relations hit by hiring him.
UPDATE: Saturday afternoon, it was reported Nate Oats is expected to hire Nicholls State Head Coach, Austin Claunch as his first new assistant coach.
Whether Murphy is hired or not, opposing fans will attack Nate Oats and suggest he condones rules-breaking. The loudest will be Auburn fans, even though Auburn hired Bruce Pearl while he was still serving a show cause. And unlike Preston Murphy, Bruce Pearl lied to the NCAA and even worse, persuaded members of his Tennessee staff to lie to the NCAA as well. Unlike Pearl, those staff members paid a heavy price.