Nate Oats provides injury update on three key Alabama basketball players

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Saturday will provide Alabama students a first look at this year’s Alabama basketball team as the Crimson Tide will host Southern Illinois for a student-only charity exhibition at 2 p.m. CT inside of Foster Auditorium. However, fans will need to wait a bit longer to catch Alabama at full strength.

Nate Oats gaven an injury report Thursday, providing updates on the statuses of forward Charles Bediako and guards Nimari Burnett and Jahvon Quinerly. Bediako and Burnett missed Alabama’s preseason scrimmage against TCU last week, while Quinerly is still recovering from an ACL injury he suffered during the Crimson Tide’s NCAA Tournament loss to Notre Dame on March 18.

“Charles is still not practicing, so he’s out,” Oats said. “Hopefully he can start to get in some drills next week, so we’ll see how he responds to that on whether he’ll be able to play in Game 1.

“Nimari’s been practicing limited. I think he’ll be on a minutes restriction when we play Saturday. Qunierly won’t play, but he’s been able to do some stuff in practice. You can still tell he’s not all there, but he’s coming. He’s working hard.”

Bediako earned SEC All-Freshman Team honors last season, averaging 6.7 points and 4.3 rebounds. He led the team in field-goal percentage (69.2), dunks (43) and blocked shots (51). While Oats did not reveal the specifics of Bediako’s injury he say the team plans to have the forward available for the first or second week of the season depending on how he progresses in practice.

Burnett, a Texas Tech transfer, missed his fist season with Alabama after tearing his ACL last September. The five-star guard averaged 5.3 points and 1.8 rebounds while shooting 28 percent from the floor over 12 games during his his lone season with the Red Raiders in 2020-2021.

Quinerly started 27 games of 33 appearances for Alabama last season, ranking second on the team in scoring (13.8 ppg), assists (4.2 apg) and made field goals (165). The fifth-year senior was originally expected to rejoin the team by the start of SEC play in January. However, it now appears he could return to action sooner.

“I think if we can keep everybody else injury-free, we should have all 12 available maybe earlier than what we thought,” Oats said, “maybe early December, somewhere in there.”

Following its exhibition against Southern Illinois, Alabama will open its season against Longwood on Nov. 7 at 7:30 p.m. CT inside Coleman Coliseum.