When Alabama’s administration learned Jan. 15 about the arrest of then-basketball player Darius Miles for capital murder, it found out immediately that two other players — Brandon Miller and Jaden Bradley — were at the scene of the shooting.

That is what athletics director Greg Byrne said Wednesday during an interview by ESPN in which Byrne stated Alabama did not learn further details about Miller’s involvement, such as the text message he received from Miles, until those were revealed in court Tuesday.

The text message was part of the evidence collected by law enforcement as part of its investigation of Miles and the other man charged with capital murder, his friend Michael Davis.

“Only law enforcement knows all the facts of the situation,” Byrne said. “The rest of us are still learning things.”

That raised two questions that Byrne addressed during the interview: did Alabama conduct its own investigation of Miller and Bradley’s role in January when the school found out they were at the scene? And once the school learned of the additional information from the hearing Tuesday, did it circle back with the two players to discuss the new information before allowing them to play Wednesday night?

Byrne said Alabama does not conduct its own investigations.

“As a department, we stress to our coaches and staff regularly, throughout the year, that we’re reporters and that we cooperate. We don’t try to do the job of investigators,” Byrne told ESPN. “We are not investigators. Whether that’s a legal issue, whether that’s a Title IX issue, we let the experts do their jobs.

“To that end, from the very first phone call early on that Sunday morning [Jan. 15], the university and athletics’ department primary objective has been to fully cooperate with law enforcement in this situation. That objective was stressed multiple times to every member of our basketball coaching staff and the team from the very beginning. I have personally heard Nate Oats remind the team multiple times. I have reminded the team.

“Our role in a criminal investigation is to support law enforcement, not to conduct our own investigation — and not to interfere with their efforts.”

The message from law enforcement to Alabama, as both Byrne and Oats have stated, was Miller was considered a cooperating witness and not a suspect.

“Although we’re not investigators, we do have a duty to evaluate whether anyone involved in our program has violated the rules, policies and standards of the university,” Byrne added. “We make that evaluation based on facts. We found out some new facts [Tuesday]. We found out some new facts [Wednesday].”

Byrne said it learned about the text message from Miles to Miller from Tuesday’s court hearing, then attempted to learn more information from Miller about that exchange.

“From there, what we tried to do is make sure that we tried to get a full understanding of the situation of that text message to the best of our abilities,” Byrne said.

He then explained what was learned in that fact-gathering process this week.

“Brandon was not there for the verbal altercation [between Miles, Davis and Jamea Harris’ boyfriend],” Byrne said Alabama learned. “Brandon was already on his way to pick up Darius when Darius texted him. Brandon never left his vehicle and was not involved in the collection of the weapon. The shooting occurred just seconds after Brandon arrived.”

That included contact between Alabama and Miller’s attorney this week.

“We have continued to be in communication with his legal team about any questions that we have,” Byrne said. “That’s continued in the last 24 hours [after Tuesday’s hearing].”

Miller’s attorney, Jim Standridge, issued a statement Wednesday reiterating his client’s innocence while providing more details from his activities that night. Byrne was asked by ESPN if that narrative was fact-checked by the university with police.

“Our legal team has had a conversation, yes,” Byrne said. “We continue to be told that Brandon and Jaden were at the scene, that they were cooperating and that they’re not suspects. And that’s what we know at this time.”

Mike Rodak is an Alabama beat reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @mikerodak.