You can’t blame Nate Oats for giving Charles Bediako a shot

Now that the saga surrounding Charles Bediako’s ill-fated return to the Alabama basketball team has reached the tried-and-true “to whom should we assign blame” phase that all similar hubbubs attain, it is indeed time to assign blame.

Do we blame Bediako, who clearly second-guessed his decision to leave the Crimson Tide for the 2023 NBA draft and felt a loophole existed to get a bit more run in with his old team in 2025-26?

Do we blame Tuscaloosa County Circuit Court Judge Daniel F. Pruet, who denied Bediako’s motion for a preliminary injunction and effectively ended Round 2 after 5 games that saw the Tide go 3-2 with the 7-footer delivering 10.0 points and 4.6 rebounds per outing?

Or do we blame Alabama coach Nate Oats for green-lighting this entire charade – rulebook be damned – in an attempt to buoy his team’s chances to head back to the Final Four?

All of the above?

Perhaps. But from this vantage point, you can’t really blame Oats for giving Bediako a second shot at success. After all, isn’t legal wrangling precisely how Vanderbilt got to keep Diego Pavia for the 2025 season? Or what Ole Miss is trying to engineer for Trinidad Chambliss?

The entire debacle, a word that precisely defines Bediako Part II, is more of an indictment of the NCAA than anything else. If it wasn’t for the successful Pavia-for-2025 court machinations on the football side, along with the oodles of international hoopers who collected plenty of Euros and Rubles and New Shekels before heading to the United States to try their hand at what used to be called “amateurism,” Alabama wouldn’t have even entertained the prospect of Bediako returning in the first place.

Faced with a loophole flayed wide open by young former European pros like Duke’s Dake Sarr, BYU’s Egor Dëmin, and Illinois’ Tomislav Ivišiċ, the Canadian-born Bediako fashioned himself as an international player looking for more college run. Staring at a loophole made bigger by former G Leaguers like Thierry Darlan (Santa Clara), London Johnson (Louisville), and Abdullah Ahmed (BYU) – as well as former NBA draft pick James Nnaji (Baylor) – all finding homes in college threads, Oats figured that Bediako could literally play out the remaining minutes of his eligibility clock back in Tuscaloosa.

The problem with that thinking is that the NCAA declared it “has not and will not grant eligibility to any prospective or returning student-athletes who have signed an NBA contract (including a 2-way contract)” – something Bediako very much did do while he was with the G League’s Austin Spurs in 2023.

Bediako didn’t play a minute in the NBA, as he promptly tore a meniscus in his knee while still in the G League, but that didn’t matter more than 2 years later when the NCAA denied his request in mid-January to rejoin college and play for the Crimson Tide once again. What is the difference between playing in the EuroLeague or the ABA League and signing an NBA contract without playing a single second with the logo on your chest?

Good question.

So Bediako tried to head back to school through the court system, filing a lawsuit against the NCAA that argued its recent eligibility decisions had been inconsistent and unfairly restrictive. A different judge issued a temporary restraining order allowing him to practice and compete for Alabama while the case proceeded, and he suited up amid so much hue and cry you’d think Oats actually set fire to the NCAA rulebook at Coleman Coliseum’s center court.

Bediako’s temporary restraining order allowed him to suit up and play for the Tide starting Jan. 24 against Tennessee – 3 years after he had been a defensive anchor for an Alabama team that boasted a top-3 defense in 2022-23 – and in conference games against Mizzou, Florida, Texas A&M, and then Auburn. But that TRO expired Tuesday, one day after Bediako’s motion for a preliminary injunction was denied.

Pruet, the judge, ruled that Bediako did not have a “reasonable expectation” he would be allowed to return to college basketball when no other player had been granted eligibility under the same circumstances. And it didn’t take long for beleaguered NCAA president Charlie Baker to crow that “common sense won a round today” in a statement.

And Oats, increasingly absorbing scorn from the pundits and fellow coaches for attempting the dastardly maneuver of giving a former pro player the chance to compete (and earn NIL money) in the college game, was thrust into the defensive for his role in the whole process.

“It just seems like the European international players are being given preferential treatment over the Americans,” Oats said on his ‘Hey Coach’ radio show Monday night. “Hopefully, at some point, somebody is going to win a ruling like this. It wasn’t here today.

“At some point, somebody will win one and change the system. Because that’s how it has to get changed in the NCAA. They don’t make changes on their own, typically.”

What is next for Alabama? There won’t be punishment, as the NCAA isn’t legally allowed to either retaliate against Alabama for playing Bediako during the injunction period or vacate the 3 wins Alabama secured with Bediako in the lineup.

What is next for Bediako? No one really knows, although it isn’t hard to imagine him heading back to either the G League or to Europe to ply his trade.

What is next for Oats? Sure, he will have some egg on his face and could even see his team feel a little backlash when Selection Sunday rolls around for those scarlet-letter Ws.

But this wasn’t Oats’s fight to win or lose. Alas, the Alabama coach simply read the room and watched his former player roll the dice in an attempt to become a current player once again.

Charles Bediako’s court loss isn’t Nate Oats’ fault. Instead, it is an indictment of a toothless NCAA once again forced to see its fabled rulebook defended and defined by the courts.

David Wasson

An APSE national award-winning writer and editor, David Wasson has almost four decades of experience in the print journalism business in Florida and Alabama. His work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and several national magazines and websites. His Twitter handle: @JustDWasson.