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March 17, 2025 14 mins
Xavier battles Texas on Wednesday night in the First Four of the NCAA Tournament. XU Head Coach Sean Miller joined us on ESPN1530. 

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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Fifteen thirty on Oeger. Thank you so much for joining
us today. Selection Sunday is my favorite day on the
American sports calendar. And the reason why I love Selection
Sunday is we find out at the same time that
the teams find out, and so I think that's the
best part of it. The best part of that show

(00:21):
on CBS are when you see the teams that find
out they're going, or even if they're not shown on
the Selection show itself. You saw the footage from Sean
Miller's house last night. The Xavier Musketeers find out they're
in where they're going, which is obviously Dayton to play
Texas on Wednesday night. A euphoric site, a euphoric feeling

(00:42):
at Coach Miller's house, and I'm sure that has given
away to a lot of work in the hour since
x you getting set to take on Texas on Wednesday night.
The Musketeers back in the NCAA tournament after a one
year absence and during what I'm sure is a very
busy time for him. We're still honor to be joined
by the head coach of the NCAA tournament bound Xavior Musketeer,

(01:03):
Sean Miller is with us. It's good to have you coach.
Congratulations on the berth and thank you so much for
joining us.

Speaker 2 (01:09):
How are you my psure moe? Great? Great talking to you.

Speaker 1 (01:13):
Glad to be on So you know, we talked about
the magical feeling you said you felt last night unlike
anything you have felt in sports. Last night you get
done talking with the media. When did things pivot from
euphoria to the work that you and your staff and
your team have in front of you?

Speaker 2 (01:31):
You know it twitched right away. But I will tell
you the joy of being a part of the tournament
and you know, really locking arms with the group of
players and our staff that we have in place here
is it's an amazing feeling. You know, it's it's quite
a climb. It's not easy to make the tournament at
any level right now. And you know, I think the

(01:51):
work that we see it begins like in May April,
right when you start to construct the new team. It
goes all the way to the summer month into the
fall and when you reflect back of all the ups
and downs adversity, you know, the tough times, the great times,
and you finally get to that very end. You know,
it's like being at the top of the mountain. Mo

(02:12):
like you, you've been climbing, You've been climbing, and man,
you finally are at the very top, and and you
share it with these kids that it means every bit
as much to them as it means to you. You know,
watching the smile on Zach Fremantle's face, maybe on McKnight,
a lot of guys on our team that are playing
in a tournament for the first time, you know, it'll

(02:32):
be I think something, at least for me, I'll remember
for the rest of my life.

Speaker 1 (02:37):
Well, and you talked about him last night as well.
Ryan Conwell did everything he could do in New York
on Wednesday in that game against Marquette, And my first
thought was what he and his teammates in Indiana State
went through last year where I certainly felt like they
should have been in. They were fun to watch all
season long. They don't get in and I'm thinking, man,

(02:57):
this can't happen to him for a second consecutive year,
and lo and behold it doesn't. Yeah, you feel happy
for everybody you talk about, Zach Fremantle, who I'm going
to ask you about, but you had to feel really
happy for a guy like Ryan.

Speaker 2 (03:08):
Conwell, for sure, And you know, Ryan, it was like
deja vu because a year earlier, like you had mentioned,
he watched the selection shows his fingers crossed and it
didn't work for him. And this year, you know, all
of us were hoping that what we did was enough
and you know, just throwed to be a part of

(03:29):
the tournament. And now the next part becomes you certainly
want to perform well now that you're in it.

Speaker 1 (03:35):
Let's talk about Zach Fremantle, because there's him getting a
chance to play in this event, which he didn't get
two years ago. But it's it's not just that, it's
it's how he has played down the stretch and he
was you know, he was terrific against Marquette, but the
seven game winning streak, you know, it's it's one thing
to be happy for him to have a chance to
play in it. It's something else when you have a

(03:55):
guy who has been so instrumental in you guys getting
yourselves in a position of the NCAA tournament. I'm sure
that for him and for you makes it all the
more sweeter.

Speaker 2 (04:05):
No, for sure, you know, being a second team All
Big East player this year, you know we had a
great group of players in our conference, and I think
for the ten other coaches to vote him as one
of the top ten players in the league, knowing that
he also missed three three of the games in the
Big East as I think, quite a statement. You know,
mo he is he has scored in double figures twenty

(04:29):
eight times in a row, twenty eight to twenty eight.
In all twenty eight games that he's played in, he's
been a double figure scorer, which you know, Look, there
aren't a lot of players that can say that, especially
playing in a Power five type of conference.

Speaker 1 (04:46):
In the In the days leading up to selection Sunday,
we as fans were crunching numbers and all the data
the committee uses. It's public. We can all interpret it.
We could all use it to make our arguments about
certain teams. There's a billion people out there projecting with
the brackets should or will look like how much of
that stuff, if any of it, do you pay attention to?

Speaker 2 (05:10):
You know, I commend that myself. I did an amazing
job of not paying attention to any of it. I really,
you know now the madness and how I am while
not paying attention to it. You know, there's there's a
that's a whole other side of the story. But in
terms of just trying to ignore it, doing your job
to ignore it, I just tried to coach the team,

(05:32):
be with my staff, and just control the things that
we could control. You know that right there is hard enough.

Speaker 1 (05:39):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (05:39):
Then when you start letting the emotions of what you
can't control interfere with your process and more, you're just
a complete basket case. You're all over the place. So
I really wasn't up to date. I didn't even know
Memphis won. You know Memphis. The big game before selection
show is you want Memphis to win their league championship
because we in one another big Steeler, And heck, I

(06:02):
had no idea. I just tried to focus on and
let it all, let the chips fall. So again, that's
what makes it magical. I heard you say that you know,
Selection Sunday is a great day. It could also be
a devastating day, and I'm glad on our end that
we were on the good side of things.

Speaker 1 (06:18):
So you instantly turned your attention to Texas. And I'll
ask you about the Longhorns here in just a second.
But compare maybe I don't know, we can do this
twenty years ago, thirty years ago. When you're on staff
at Miami in a less digital age. What is it
like gathering information in a short amount of time for
an opponent now compared to when you first started in
this business.

Speaker 2 (06:40):
Oh wow, it's so funny. It's night and day. You know,
Fad Mada and I were assistant coaches at Miami. Ironically,
we were getting ready to play Arizona in U d
Arena in the first round, and him and I just
basically were drinking beer in the locker room throughout the
night with VHS tapes and just putting them in and

(07:00):
you know, you couldn't even rewind with the remote control.
It just took forever. And and by the way, you
couldn't get every game because not every game was on TV.
And then how you would go about showing your team.
And I mean, it's it's so archaic when you think
about what we do today. You know today, I mean,
within fifteen minutes of figuring out we're playing Texas, we

(07:21):
had every game of their season locked and loaded, and
we had the ability to watch and put things together
and just a rapid fire away. So yeah, complete, completely
different for everybody.

Speaker 1 (07:33):
As the head coach, you find out you're gonna play Texas,
and you have a staff and right and so a
certain assistant might you might say, Okay, you're going to
scout Texas and the others are going to take the
teams you may play in Milwaukee. How how many of
those games as the head coach are you going to
watch in the Longhorns.

Speaker 2 (07:51):
You know, I try to keep it consistent. I watched
several games. And then you know there's these edits that
you know to your earlier question, where you know, watching
every shot at their best player, just watching just their offense,
not their defense, watching just their defense and not their offense.
You know, you can pretty much do whatever you want. Well,
like if I said I want to see you know,

(08:11):
every May three point shot in the sec from Texas,
we could pull that up in five minutes. So you know,
those are more of the things that I do. And
then really I try to work directly with our staff.
They do an amazing job of preparing our team and
watching even more than I do. And then at the
end of the day, it's so much more about your
team and having a good practice and making sure guys

(08:33):
are confident and excited than it is, you know, trying
to master everything that Texas does.

Speaker 1 (08:39):
You had some time between last night and last Wednesday
in New York. Did you guys go, did you guys practice?
Were they light workouts? Did you say, look, let's get
away from each other and reconvene on Sunday. What'd you
guys do during that time away?

Speaker 2 (08:55):
Yeah, so we traveled back on Friday. That was a
tough day, a long day. So that was off. Actually
took Saturday off as well, which is good, you know,
coming off of conference tournaments late in the year. But
we practiced on both Sunday, and we practiced obviously today.
And you know, my before the selection show is, you know,
my motto was just real simple with our team and

(09:15):
until somebody takes the coin from us, we're gonna keep
flipping it. You know, We're gonna keep working and be
the best that we can be. And we're gonna have
a great day today. And and yesterday was a great day.

Speaker 1 (09:26):
I mentioned you guys played Wednesday, you played Thursday. I
don't know how to read a calendar. You you were
not kind of enough to join me before the Creton game,
and we talked about how in the big East. Because
of the quality of the league, the size of the league,
its depth, You're gonna play every every type of team imaginable.
Is there somebody in the league that Texas reminds you of?

Speaker 2 (09:47):
Yeah, that's a good question. I don't know, per se,
I can just give you one. But you know, they
have an incredible freshman Johnson, who was the SEC freshman
the year also led the SEC as good as that
league was in scoring, so you can imagine how talented
he is. He's a six ft six wing player. They're

(10:10):
very physical, they play a very good defense. Defensively, they
played man to man. They pride themselves and you know,
they pushed the ball in transition. You know, they have
a little bit of Saint John's to them. I wouldn't
say they're completely like them, but with that Marquee one player,
you know, I think they're obviously a terrific team and

(10:31):
it's going to be a great, great matchup for us.

Speaker 1 (10:34):
You guys were so good over the last eight or
nine games on the defensive end, and look, you would
have liked to have gotten stops late in that game
against Marquette. I don't think there's any questioning that. But
you have to go into this pleased with what you
guys have been able to do off defensively. You talk
about Trey Johnson, who has obviously been terrific this year,

(10:54):
But do you feel like after such a long season
where you came so far on the defensive end, that
you go into this event with something with your defense
being something that you and your team can hang us
oude on.

Speaker 2 (11:07):
No, we talk a lot about it, you know. I
think the stat that really says everything you need to
know about our season, MO is for a huge part
of our of our non conference year. Well, I'll tell
you the entire non conference season, and for at least
half of the Big East season, we're the eleventh the
eleventh best defensive rebounding team in an eleven team conference.

(11:31):
So how it felt was among the myriad of good
things that we were doing, we never could quite break through,
because if you can't defensive rebound, it gets in the
way of all other things. Right now, we're the second
best defensive rebounding team in the Big East. We came
so far in a really short period of time. We

(11:53):
corrected something that oftentimes is almost incorrectable, and that right there,
from eleven to two is the biggest difference in our season,
and I will also tell you it will be one
of the biggest stats for us on Wednesday night when
we play Texas. We have to be able to rebound
with him. If not, it'll be it'll be a tough

(12:14):
night for us.

Speaker 1 (12:15):
You get one more practice at a home and then
bus up. How to the next forty eight hours or
so work.

Speaker 2 (12:22):
Yeah, we go early in the morning and then we
bus up and then we'll be in Dayton from that
point on and obviously a late night tip. I think
it's nine pm on Wednesday.

Speaker 1 (12:32):
It's going to be a late night, but worth the wait.
And congratulations back in the NCAA tournament. I hope we're
doing this next week because you guys have won one
in Dayton, two in Milwaukee, and we're talking about what's next.
I know you're not even gonna come close to going there,
but I will. Best of luck tomorrow and congratulations on
getting into the tournament. Hopefully your stay is a long one.

(12:54):
Thanks so much, Thank.

Speaker 2 (12:56):
You, Moe, great great being all with you.

Speaker 1 (12:58):
Always good to have you. Sean Miller, head coach of
the Xavier Musketeers. XU gets in they will play Texas
tomorrow night at UNIERN. The game tomorrow is on a Wednesday.
Last week's game was on a Thursday.

Speaker 3 (13:12):
And if they win, they'll play on Friday.

Speaker 1 (13:14):
They'll play on Friday.

Speaker 2 (13:15):
Yes, at nine forty five.

Speaker 1 (13:17):
At nine forty five, you know I there are days
I could screw up a glass of water. It is
eighteen minutes after five o'clock. What the Cincinnati Bengals have
done is one of the most remarkable things in the
history of the franchise. That and they have allowed Joe
Burrow to live up to his name. And your phone
calls coming up on ESPN fifteen thirty Cincinnati Sports Station

(13:40):
Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty.

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(14:04):
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Speaker 2 (14:16):
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