The Crimson Tide is going to be without one of its best players on Friday when the team kicks off the NCAA Tournament against Hofstra following the arrest and suspension of star guard Aden Holloway on a marijuana charge.

Holloway has been charged with first-degree possession and failure to affix a tax stamp after authorities found more than two pounds of marijuana following a search on Monday morning.

On Monday afternoon, news broke that Holloway had been removed from campus and the team while the university conducts an internal investigation of its own, and head coach Nate Oats spoke about the situation during his weekly appearance on Hey Coach to preview the tournament.

“We’ve got standards in our program. We’ve got ways we’ve held our guys accountable. We try to keep everything in house. Obviously some of the situations you can’t. This is one of those,” Oats said via Nick Kelly of ALdotcom. “The situation is a little different. We found out about what was going on this morning. I found out this morning. I guess it all went down this morning. We had to suspend him, pending the investigation by the UA office of student conduct. We’re certainly disappointed in his behavior. That being said, we still love him. He’s still our guy. We’re helping him get the help he needs. We’re going to continue to help him whatever way we can.”

Oats addressed Holloway’s absence from a basketball perspective as well and expressed optimism that the team’s backcourt depth will be able to make up for the loss.

“As far as our team goes, I thought we had a great practice,” he said. “We’re preparing to play without him this weekend. We’re preparing for Hofstra, who is very good. They’ve got a good backcourt of their own. I thought our guys, while at the same time, Aden is one of our guys and everybody wants to wrap their arms around him and love him. Everybody makes mistakes in life. But they also understand we’ve got to move on. We’ve got a whole other group of guys and the team’s got to go play Friday. I thought we did a good job of that this morning, kind of addressing the situation, what we currently knew at the time. Got our guys focused on practice. I thought we had a really good practice.”

The No. 4 seeded Crimson Tide will take on the No. 13 seed Hofstra in the Midwest Region from Tampa, FL on Friday afternoon at 2:15 p.m. CST.