Alabama men’s basketball coach Nate Oats was not fined or suspended by the SEC for pushing a Missouri player during Tuesday night’s win in Coleman Coliseum. The league instead issued a “public reprimand” for Oats.

“Nate Oats’ actions were unacceptable and violated the expectations for conduct and sportsmanship as established by the membership of the Southeastern Conference,” SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said in a release announcing the lack of a punishment. “Under no circumstances should a coach make intentional contact with a student-athlete on an opposing team.”

The incident happened entering the under-8 timeout. Missouri’s Anthony Robinson II and Alabama’s Aaron Estrada started a brief scuffle in front of the Alabama bench.

During the course of the minor fracas, Oats pushed Missouri forward Aidan Shaw away from the bench area. Shaw did not retaliate in the moment, nor did MU head coach Dennis Gates.

Oats said after the game that he had apologized.

“No disrespect to him or his program,” Oats said, speaking of Missouri coach Dennis Gates. “I apologized to both coach Gates and Aidan Shaw. Aidan seems like a great kid and that was an unfortunate situation, but I apologized to both of them. Wanted to address that before we got going.”

The push did not result in a foul of any sort during the game.

Gates confirmed Oats’ apology during his postgame press conference. He questioned what would have happened if the push had happened under different circumstances.

“If that was players in a huddle with a hand on an opponent, what would take place?” Gates asked. “It would be an automatic technical foul, right? I thought I saw two referees in the huddle, it wasn’t a technical foul. But that’s the question I would pose. If it was players making hand contact, what would take place?”

Alabama won the game 93-75 to move to 4-0 in SEC play. The Tide will be back in action Saturday at Tennessee.