Brandon Miller held scoreless in Alabama's first-round win

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Alabama star forward Brandon Miller, who has been dealing with a groin injury, was held scoreless for the first time this season as the Crimson Tide beat Texas A&M Corpus Christi 96-75 during the first round of the NCAA tournament on Thursday.

Miller, who averaged a team-high 19.7 points per game, played only 19 minutes and missed all five of his field goal attempts. He averaged 33.2 minutes per game entering the tournament.

A projected lottery pick, Miller had five rebounds, three assists and three turnovers.

Alabama coach Nate Oats said Miller injured his groin during the Crimson Tide's win in the SEC Championship Game on Sunday.

«It was nice to be able to put up 96 without Brandon scoring a point,» Oats said. "… We were trying to play him limited minutes. We were able to keep him under 20. Hopefully, he can get a lot of rehab today and tomorrow and look a lot more like himself on Saturday."

Miller, for his part, downplayed the severity of the injury. Asked if it was the reason he was on the bench for stretches of the game, he said, «If that's what you want to call it… we can go with that.»

«I feel like I was just there to support my team,» he added.

Miller said the injury is «getting better by the day.»

Asked if he expected to play against Maryland on Saturday, he responded, «Of course.»

Texas A&M Corpus Christi coach Steve Lutz joked on Wednesday that they'd need Miller to fall ill for them to stop him.

«I mean, he was scoreless, you know, I don't know that you can give our defense a lot of the credit,» Lutz said Thursday. «Maybe he had an off night. I really don't know. I know that I watched him on tape and he's really, really good. Um, so for us to have collectively done the job that we did on