11-13-25 Wes Miller Show

Coach Miller joins Dan Hoard to talk about the first 3 games of UC's basketball season.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
It's greatest rips. Welcome to the West Miller Radio Show.
I'm Dan Hord alongside former Bearcats standout Terry Nelson and
the star of the show, the head coach of the
three and oh you see Bearcats. Let's hear it for
Wes Miller. Cincinnati coming off a nice win on Tuesday Night,
a twelve point win over the Dayton Flyers. We know

(00:25):
at the end of the year, Dayton's going to have
a good NCAA net ranking. They're in the top one
hundred every year. So that's one of those wins that's
going to pay dividends in March. And anytime you can
get a win over Dayton, I don't care if it's
one point, twelve points, whatever, that's a nice victory.

Speaker 2 (00:43):
Yeah, please with the result for sure. And you know,
we're still a team that's evolved in learning each other
going through games for the first time. That was the
first higher level opponent that we played in that sense
at least, and you know, there was some nice things
that happened that gave us a chance to have a
double figure victory.

Speaker 3 (01:03):
Your mentality has been from from day one. Next play.
You finally have a team that truly understands what next
play is. Obviously, as you're adjusting to a new style
of constant pressure offensively and defensively with little or no
breaks to really process what you're doing, you've gotta process faster.

Speaker 4 (01:22):
You're gonna have some mistakes.

Speaker 3 (01:23):
Is it truly about the next play?

Speaker 2 (01:27):
That's been a motto for years, is that the most
important play is the next play. And it's it's like,
you know, you hear that in practice all the time,
and it's it's neat if you hear the players echoing
that to each other. And so you're trying to adapt
establish that type of mentality, and like, I'll give you

(01:47):
the example in the Dayton game. You know, they score
to cut it to two, and we scored four and
a half seconds later on the other end, and that
that's what we mean is sunk.

Speaker 4 (01:58):
They got it out and you guys ran straight.

Speaker 2 (01:59):
Down, yeah, you know, and it was a it was
a big play for them, a big value dunk way
above the rim, and you're scoring on the other end
while they're still celebrating, and then all of a sudden
that that's a big momentum shift. They had a momentum shift.
And then you go right back, and to me, that's
that's playing the next play right, not letting what just
happen affect what you're supposed to do.

Speaker 1 (02:19):
Dayton shot twenty four percent in the first half, thirty
two percent in the game. Is your defense ahead of
your offense right now? Or is that a day to
day type of thing.

Speaker 2 (02:30):
It's too early to analyze statistics, you know, Like I
think people somebody referenced some Ken palm stuff and press
conference and you know that that kind of thing. I
think I think about seven eight nine games in you
can really look at some statistics. You have a bigger
sample size than those statistics mean a little more. I
feel like our offense in some ways is way ahead

(02:51):
of our defense, but not in every way. I think
there's some things with our offense we still have to
really iron out, and we haven't run a lot of
specific action yet. It's been more just kind of flow
and style of play. We definitely got to get a
little more specific here over the next couple of weeks. Defensively, again,
two weeks ago, I went, man, we got too far
to go that I want to go, and we're going

(03:13):
to really spend some time and energy on it. We
have over the last two weeks and it's improving, but
it still has a ways to go.

Speaker 3 (03:18):
When you put together over the years your scouting report,
you look at your team, you're going over their offense,
and then you're looking at key players. At some point
you didn't have the players to lock down the other
team's best players, so you had to do a lot
of scheme. You've got multiple guys now that can get
after and sort of go on one man assignments and say, hey,
your job is there, your job is there? When you're

(03:40):
putting your game plan together, are you using more of
that and using the knowledge of the talent that you
have around you to sort of put a damp in
the fire that these guys may have.

Speaker 2 (03:50):
Yeah, maybe a little of that terry and maybe a
little not. I think we do really value the personnel report,
you know, trying and I think we have some older
eyes that have logged a lot of minutes in college
basketball and they know how to take a scout and
report and apply it to our defensive principles. So you know,
maybe you're guarding a guy that's not as good of
a shooter, or a guy that we're not going to

(04:11):
respect as much of as a shooter, and these guys,
especially our older players, understand how to go under a
screen that you might normally go over something like that.
And so in the Dayton game, there was a number
of guys that we decided to play underneath. We decided
to keep in front. They were so dangerous downhill in

(04:33):
their first three games and the first I'm sorry too.
And the exhibitions, you're so worried about what they can
do at the rim, but it's like, hey, they can
make a shot, but that's not been who they've been,
either at Dayton or at previous stops in their careers.
Our guys were able to kind of take some of
those things in scout and then apply them. And I
think we have to be a team that continues to
be able to utilize that information. And then, you know,

(04:55):
I think we do have a couple of guys that
can really, you know, lock into a defense of a
I'm you know, I'd like to have a team full
of that, but there's some guys that are capable, for sure.

Speaker 1 (05:06):
Buck Harris might be the most prototypical Bearcat you've had
in your five years coaching at Cincinnati. The toughness, the hustle,
the aggressiveness, the feistiness. One negative though so far has
been fouled trouble. He's averaging four files in the first
three games. Does his reputation lead to some fouls being

(05:28):
called on him that aren't called on others or are
there easy ways for him to cut down on those files?

Speaker 2 (05:35):
Yeah, I think it's probably a mix of things. Dan
and we actually had the reputation conversation in film a
couple of days ago when we were watching the game
tape with the team. You know, we do have some
guys that have not just played a lot of college basketball,
they've played college basketball in this league. With the officials
that get assigned to games in this league, and we
talked about it, some of you guys have some reputations

(05:57):
and you got to be very aware of that, and
they know who you are. I mean, they're talking about
our players by first name before we even tip the ball.
And some of that's good and some of it's not.
And they have to try to build the right reputations.
In their early time at Cincinnati, I said to one
of our players in film, I said, you have a
reputation as this and that didn't happen at Cincinnati it

(06:20):
happened somewhere else. You got to change it at Cincinnati,
and so I think Buck is getting penalized a little bit,
you know, because people do understand how aggressively is defensively.
But he's also just got to find that happy medium
of still being him, being aggressive, but having a little
more discipline so we can keep them in the game.

Speaker 3 (06:37):
I know what you mean about reputation, because Dan has
a reputation of taking the We used to stay together
on the road for a year.

Speaker 4 (06:42):
Has as soon as.

Speaker 3 (06:43):
He was sitting there, he would just take the table,
take the little desk in there, put all this stuff
laid out, and then he would go use the restroom.

Speaker 4 (06:49):
So I had to go down. I know about reputation.

Speaker 2 (06:51):
But anyway, with anything, we got a great trend going
on this year that you two just keep. I'm gonna
have to out of the middle of this at some point.

Speaker 3 (07:01):
It's entertainment value, rather, come on, they's been a pretty
pity here, So entertainment value.

Speaker 4 (07:05):
Okay, So you get your offense left to right.

Speaker 3 (07:10):
It seems like when that ball goes left to right,
you have options of on the ball screens or you
had to give your guys the freedom to dance a
little bit and create for themselves or for the team.
When that pall comes, it seems to shine to Baiev.
He has this ability against the toughest of defense with
his side step to get separation, and it seems like
because he's so long and because it seems to be

(07:31):
a slow wind up on it, he gets filed a
lot on three point attempts, more than I've seen any
other player in Cincinnati in recent years.

Speaker 2 (07:40):
Yeah, you know, I think we have the utmost confidence
and Shawn, you know, being able to shot create, and
I think the ones that stand out to everybody are
the tough ones that he hits, you know, where he's defended.
And certainly that was a big part of while we recurve.
Somebody said, you're gonna let him take those shots. I said,
recruited him to take those shots. I mean, it'd be

(08:02):
silly to tell him we love you because you can
do that, and then you get here and you're not
allowed to do that. But the part that he does
so well that maybe is underrated is hillity to make
the easy play for others. You know, he can start
the domino with the ball in his hands, and I
thought he did that at the end of the game,
and we put him in, you know, three straight pick

(08:23):
and rolls, and was all the same action. And one
of them he makes a nice simple pass to Day Day.
Day Day drives a baseline and Day Day goes to
Jal and Celestine. Three. The other one he comes off
he makes a nice simple pass to Day they coming
off a pen down and Day they missed a shot.
And then he comes off of it the third time
in the Red Sea Party, then he went down and
dunked it. But I think he's going to be able
to create offense, not just with his own shot, but

(08:45):
I think he can create offense for everybody else because
he is a pretty good decision maker.

Speaker 1 (08:49):
All right, Let's get to the turnovers. Twenty four of
them in the game. You said you would review that
the next day when you watched the tape and talk
about it with the players. What stood out? What much
do you do to that number?

Speaker 4 (09:00):
Way down?

Speaker 2 (09:02):
Well, what stood out is that we won a game.
We had twenty four turnouts, and I told I said,
after the game, that'll go in the book one day.
There's some that stick out. I think I embellished and
it wasn't on purpose. But we gave up sixteen threes
and a half one time at the Citadel, and I
think we gave eight in the second half. So it's
twenty four for the game, and we won the game.

(09:23):
And I'll never forget that game because we gave up
twenty four threes and we won the game. It'll be
like that when this date and games talked about, you know, seven, eight,
ten years from now. We turned it over twenty four
dang times. By the way, we weren't very good from
the free throw line either. And then we had Day
Day twelve for twelve and I think sincere was the
eight for ten. Am I right about that? But we

(09:46):
won the game, and that means you had to do
a lot of other good stuff, and so there was
some good stuff even though heck we turned it over. Yes,
we did address it in film. We can't be a
team that's careless with the ball. There's two types of
turnovers that you don't want to live with as a coach.
One is selfish turnover. I didn't see any of that.
The second is a casual, careless turnover. We had a

(10:06):
bunch of those. We had a bunch of those. I
mean some of them trying to break the press, some
of them footwork airs, some of them passing and catching airs.
I mean, it wasn't one specific thing, but this thing
that was consistent was careless and casual. Good news. You
can clean up careless and casual, but we can't expect
to be the team we want to be every night.
If we're going to turn the ball over like that, all.

Speaker 1 (10:28):
Right, well take a time out. Then we'll continue from
the original Montgomery In Home of the World's Greatest Ribs.
It's the West Miller Radio Show on seven hundred WLW
Welcome back to the original Montgomery In Home of the
World's Greatest ribs, Great Potato chips as well, and the
West Miller Radio Show here on seven hundred WLW. The

(10:48):
Bearcats will be back in action this Sunday at six,
So you can watch the Bengals beat the Steelers first.
Nobody's excited about that ago. You can watch the Bengals
beat the Steelers first, then head over the fifth third
Arena and watch the Bearcats beat hopefully Mount Saint Mary's
at six o'clock. Yes, let's talk about the performance of

(11:12):
Dayda A Thomas. We noted the fact that he was
twelve for twelve from the free throw line and made
clutch ones down the stretch. But also the defense that
he played in that game against Javon Bennett was a
big reason why you beat a good Dating team.

Speaker 2 (11:24):
It was fun Javon Bennett. I thinks first team all
A ten preseason.

Speaker 4 (11:29):
It's cool.

Speaker 2 (11:30):
You know, there had Day Day and Javon Bennett have
both been in these programs for three years, so we've watched. Obviously,
it's been fun to coach Dada for extended period of time,
and then you've played against Date in three years and
you see a kid like Bennett, how much better he's
gotten every year. That's the old college basketball, and that's
still neat when it happens. But watching those two compete

(11:50):
was fun, and I thought Dada had a really nice game,
and I think it's a sign he's confident again, he's
healthy again. I think he's in a role on this
team that really suits who he is, and so I
think he's gonna have a lot of nights like that.

Speaker 3 (12:08):
To the media creation team at Cincinnati for Basketball does
a great job of capturing moments, putting music to it
dramatic effect. And for Kerr, Chris talked about they were
in the locker room and you had Day Day coming
in there, and he's all for.

Speaker 4 (12:23):
The full lather.

Speaker 3 (12:23):
He goes, Man, you're gonna go for thirty tonight hunt.
He goes, No, my job is to lock down Carter Javon.
Lock him down. And the mentality that he took is
like when you knew he had dayDay coming back, you
were good because you knew you had your signal caller.
You had the guy that has the same mind as you,
just wants to do anything it takes to win, and
a guy who's been through the ups and downs and

(12:45):
will do anything in order to get that w in
following the coach's commands.

Speaker 2 (12:51):
Yeah, guys. Somebody asked me that they can you know,
what kind of value do you have with Dade Thomas
And I can't. I got no words for that. I mean,
his value is beyond comprehension. And there's things that he
does for our program that nobody gets to see because
they're behind the scenes. And I think we have a
captain circle and before the game, if everybody gets there early,

(13:12):
go go watch that captain circle. Next game, it'd be
good to have everybody in the seats that early. But
he's the only guy that goes, and that there's a
reason for that. I mean, he's been the consummate leader
in this program, represents what we're about. So having him
is a big deal for us. For sure.

Speaker 1 (13:30):
He got a year an extra year of eligibility this
year because of a law case, a lawsuit last year
filed by the guy who's playing quarterback for Vanderbilt, Diego Pavia.

Speaker 2 (13:40):
Were you aware in.

Speaker 1 (13:41):
The process of that that there was a chance the
day they would get another year or when the ruling
came down then, did it occur to you, hey, this
might apply to him.

Speaker 2 (13:51):
It was kind of more like that. Like now, I
tell you what, there's been times that I think me
and Terry just need to go hire a lawyer and
we get some eligibility back.

Speaker 4 (14:00):
I mean, I went, I got two years left, man,
somebody take the charge.

Speaker 2 (14:03):
Seriously, let's go.

Speaker 4 (14:06):
At nine to one.

Speaker 3 (14:06):
Would have one button to push left after I take
my first charge.

Speaker 2 (14:10):
We'd be good in the half court.

Speaker 4 (14:11):
We would there you go, YMC pick league.

Speaker 2 (14:14):
I can still play zone offense. I've said that that's
the one part of practice I can impress you. Yeah,
I can just keep backing up and shoot. But but but,
but no. I think it was a little bit of
that that we just assumed, as everybody did, that day
Day was going to be done. And when all that
stuff started to happen, when WHOA this is apply to dayDay?
Thomas and we talked. I think it was right around Christmas,

(14:36):
if I'm not mistaken. But we got back from Christmas
and I sat him down and I just said, Hey,
I just want you to know that if this all
goes how I'm hearing it's going to go, I want
you back at Cincinnati. You don't even need to question
that for one second. So I'm really glad it's all
worked out.

Speaker 3 (14:50):
Coach, let me let me lay something out and just
to talk about how good I believe this team is.
Twenty four turnovers, twenty five per foles, fourteen miss free throws,
many of those were one and ones front ends of
one and ones. And your best player, Baba Miller, Well,
I believe he's the best player. He had eight points,
He didn't really have a good game, and he didn't

(15:11):
score in the first half.

Speaker 4 (15:13):
He rebounded well, he did a lot of things well,
it just didn't score the ball well.

Speaker 3 (15:16):
Yet you played a pesky Dayton team that will finish
in the top twenty five, they will win their conference.

Speaker 4 (15:22):
You beat them by twelve. So it's like everybody sees
the sky.

Speaker 3 (15:26):
Falling, and I'm saying, all that stuff happened and they
won by twelve.

Speaker 4 (15:32):
How good can this team be? What's their ceiling?

Speaker 2 (15:35):
Well, I think I think we have a lot of
confidence this can be a very very good team, Terry.
I think we have a lot of confidence that this
team is going to have the ability to keep taking
consistent steps and be its best team in January and February.
We have so many new pieces. We're still trying to
figure out how all that goes together. We're from a

(15:58):
normal what I would call a normal year when you
have continuity. We're so far behind on things we might
have in offensively and defensively, not for the wrong reason,
just because you can't skip the steps. And so I
think it's I'm having a ton of fun at the
moment coaching because I don't even think we're close to
where we could be now. I have an urgency to
get there quickly, but I think this can be by

(16:19):
the end. I think this can be a very very
good basketball team and a ceiling. I'd be too early
for me to say what that is, but it's a
lot higher than where we are right now. For sure.

Speaker 1 (16:29):
There's an old saying in baseball when a guy gets
off to a terrible start in April, he'll eventually play
to the back of his baseball card. In other words,
if you are a career two eighty hitter by the
end of the year, you're going to be closed to
too eighty. Does that apply to free throw shooting, because
you've got some guys that are off to slow starts.
It's only three games, but just as an example, Mustapha

(16:50):
Chom shot him pretty well last year at UCF. He
shot them poorly so far this year. Do you assume
that eventually he plays to the back of the baseball card.

Speaker 2 (17:00):
He'll play above the baseball card shooting the ball. He's
an improved shooter. So again, we have such a small
sample size. And you know, free throw shooting is like putting.
You know, it's like putting in golf. It's mental. I
always said free throw shooting is different. It's the one
time in our game you shoot the ball where the
other nine people are standing still. You know, that's a

(17:23):
different sensation and so guys can get in some slumps
free throw shooting. I think some of it's maybe just
a little bit mental. But if you watch Mustafa shoot
a free throw, he has fluid, fluid motion. When he misses,
he's missing small, he's missing soft. That tells you all
you need to know. He's a good free throw shooter.
He's a good three point shooter. I'm not. I have

(17:44):
no concern about that same thing with Baba, and they
were I think a combined one for eight together correct
in the game, and I mean Seanna Baya was four
for eight. We have a free throw board. We still
we do it the whole offseason. We're doing it throughout
the season. They have to get a record three hundred
makes a week. So they obviously can shoot as many

(18:05):
as they want, but a minimum, every player has to
record three hundred I'm sorry, yeah, three hundred attempts my mistake,
and it has to be recorded with the coach and
then we chart all that and posted on the board.
And for example, last year's team, the weekly average of
the team was usually in the seventies. And from my experience,

(18:26):
that's a bad sign because you're gonna shoot better in
practice than you are in the game, especially when you're
repetitively shooting. This year's team we push in the high
eighties low nineties as a team, and so we are
a significantly better team in practice or in our free
throw competitions. It'll carry over. I'm not concerned.

Speaker 1 (18:48):
And Shanabayev, for what it's worth, probably was out on
the court for an hour after the game shooting free throws.

Speaker 2 (18:54):
Both baskets him and I watched his minutes together, and
I did give him a hard time. I said, yeah,
somebody when you're out there shooting free throws, because I
know how he's so serious about his craft. He's so
beyond his years in terms of he's disciplined to work
on his game. I said, I'd have been more impressed
if you're out there doing defensive slides.

Speaker 4 (19:14):
He didn't answer that.

Speaker 5 (19:15):
I guarantee you he's smirked, coach when I look at you,
know when you sub in, obviously, guys come in with
different superpowers, and they come in with different things.

Speaker 4 (19:27):
It doesn't get charted a lot.

Speaker 3 (19:28):
But I think the minute that Tyler McKinley gives you
how he catches the ball, he doesn't rush shots in
the paint, he finds shooters that are lower like he's
very good at offensive rebounds and looking for that second
chance opportunity from the three point line. And I know
you see his rotations. He had two files and help
defense that weren't his, but he was trying to make
play walling up and just got caught. But he seems

(19:49):
when he comes in the game, he does exactly what
you want him to do while he's in the game.

Speaker 2 (19:54):
If they made him all like Tyler McKinley, coaching would
be easy because he's just a fra freshman. But he's
in the right place at the right time. He's extremely intelligent,
very coachable, He'll he's willing to do whatever he thinks
the team needs him to do. And he's extremely gifted.

(20:16):
You know, I've shoot I've had players I could say
all that stuff about, but they weren't talented, and he's
got all that in talent, And so if they were
all like him, our jobs be pretty easy. But he's
he's been fun and it's crazy because I feel like
I've known him, you know, forever, literally since I got here.
But he's just a freshman, and that that's pretty that's

(20:36):
pretty cool for Cincinnati basketball.

Speaker 1 (20:38):
Kirk Risa had eight assists in the game. He also
had five turnovers, A couple of the turnovers late in
the game where when he was trying to make a
play with flair behind the back bounce pass on a
fast break, stuff like that. Do you encourage that? Is
its situational? I mean, is it? I'm I'm serious?

Speaker 4 (20:57):
Is that okay?

Speaker 1 (20:58):
Does it depend on time and score? How do you
feel about guys that that play with flair like that?

Speaker 2 (21:04):
The goat Dan board, I want to throw fire back
at him, yeah, Dan, and I encourage guys to throw
behind the back past twelve with a minute left.

Speaker 1 (21:12):
I mean, you know specifically that. I mean, I don't
want to use the word hot dog plays because there's
a negative connotation there.

Speaker 2 (21:21):
But well that's his play was a hot dog player,
and it needs a negative connotation because it was a
terrible play. My college coach texted me after the game,
you know, great win, congratulations at the around the one
minute mark, I wanted to shoot your point and you know,
any any put in brackets creasing and and so the

(21:44):
next day in film I read that to the whole team.
So this is what my college coach texted me after
the game, but uh, but no, I I think listen,
Kerkkrisa has a flair, yes, uh uh. He has a
swagger and a confidence to how he approaches the game,

(22:04):
and he's got a lot of experience in college basketball
on the biggest stages. That that flare, that confidence, that
edge that he plays with is his greatest strength. There's
times that that can be a weakness, and as he's
continuing to mature as a point guard, that's my challenge
to him is I don't want to restrict any of
that in the positive ways, but let's not let's finish games,

(22:27):
let's make sound plays and uh like it's it's fun
because he's an old dog in college basketball, but he
can still improve.

Speaker 3 (22:35):
Coach, And your greatest strength is not showing facial expressions
when he's making those plays.

Speaker 4 (22:41):
I'm looking at you.

Speaker 3 (22:42):
As soon as he made that behind the back pass
and it goes out on a three on one, I'm
looking at you and you just stood still.

Speaker 4 (22:47):
You were throwing face, but inside you like a duck
on water.

Speaker 3 (22:50):
I mean it looks good on top, but you're kicking
and squirming underneath that surface.

Speaker 4 (22:54):
I know something was going on there competitive.

Speaker 2 (22:57):
Oh Man, Now in the Georgia State game, just toot
and hollered and yelled at him the whole I was
trying to make some points, so you couldn't say it
about me all the time, but I was a maniac
in that game. But we were still listen, it's early
in the year and we're still We're still trying to
build this team. So there's gonna be some moments to
really push and there's gonna be some moments like that

(23:18):
where I was probably doing my woosaws and taking a
deep breath and wait until nobody could see it. Him
and I could have a conversation.

Speaker 1 (23:24):
All right, we're late for a break. Questions from the audience.
When we come back, it's the Westmeller Radio Show on
seven hundred WLW. I get the original Montgomery in home
of the World's Greatest Ribs, and the West Miller Radio
Show here on seven hundred WLW, and the Bearcats back
in action on Sunday, looking to approve to four and

(23:45):
oh as they host Mount Saint Mary's. That's six o'clock
tip on Sunday at the Third Arena. Time for questions
from the audience. Our man Elliott was not in attendance
last week. Good to have him back. He's got Mike
in hand, he's ready to.

Speaker 6 (23:59):
Go, so free with and I was just being free
agency at this point. Do you ever go after guys
assuming they're going to stay there full four years of
college with you, or that they're just going to be
a one and done. How do you go about recruiting
guys with that?

Speaker 2 (24:15):
Yeah, I think in recruiting, you know, obviously we're just
very honest. That's first, first and foremost. We're very honest,
and certainly we want guys that are going to want
to stay in our program build year to year. You
do see this trend of retention and how valuable that
is and how difficult it is, but how valuable. So

(24:36):
we were honest about what our intentions are when it
comes to one and done or how many and done.
You know, for college basketball players, this is not their
end game. All of their goals is to play in
the NBA. So if they can get the opportunity to
leave early to do that, that's the biggest win in
their lives and their family's lives. So we always support

(24:59):
that and we all always want that.

Speaker 6 (25:01):
So would day they be like a good example of
a guy that you went after and he ended up
staying the full four years.

Speaker 2 (25:09):
Yeah, Deda's a great example of that. Yeah, correct, all.

Speaker 1 (25:13):
Right, Ellieah, thank you. We have the assistant coach from
section two o six two seven, two o seven. I
thought it was two o six.

Speaker 4 (25:21):
Have you moved?

Speaker 7 (25:22):
I wasn't moved in a different seat last week or
what was that Tuesday? Thanks to Terry Nelson. I had
a colleague in town that loved to come into a
Bearcats game. So there's been a promotion in two oh
seven though I am the captain co assistant assistant coach
to do UC Bearcats and Courtney as the assistant. Yeah,

(25:45):
so I'm the speaker anyways. So our question is, you know,
when you think about last year, you know, we definitely
had a gap with leadership, and I know we had
several conversations. He just needs someone at that time to
just take the bomb, be like we're gonna win and
put it through me. And I know I'd heard that

(26:06):
through other coaches when we would struggle, and so this year, really,
did you have someone immediately that kind of rose through
in practice over the last several months that was like
he's our leader or how did that really come about
for this season?

Speaker 2 (26:23):
Well, I think I think if people want to define
the leader, I think everybody likes that narrative that this
guy is the leader. I think on the greatest teams
I've ever been a part of that, there's a bunch
of leadership roles within the team, and people lead in
different ways and in different areas. I think so far

(26:48):
this year, Dade showed a lot of leadership and he's
been He's not a vocal person. I mean, he's an introvert,
but he's been far more vocal than I've ever seen him,
especially when something needs to be said. Certainly, he's always
been a leader by example and how he approaches things,
but he has such an understanding now of winning. Kerr
has leadership ability. He is very vocal, and he has

(27:11):
a lot of experience and it's been a part of
a bunch of success in college. I think Jalen Celestine
in his own way, just because of his experience and
he's got away with people and a confidence about him.
I think him starting to play and get out in practice.
I think that that role will emerge a little bit
more sincere Harris has that mentality that I think people

(27:36):
can follow that. He's not afraid of anything. You know,
he'll attack any situation and certainly has experience. And I
could keeping even Keishan Tillery and Seanabaye of there. They're
they're alpha's right, and so they're young and they're trying
to figure it out, but they're not people that take
a back seat. And I think the more of that
that we can have, as long as everybody sees the

(27:58):
big picture of the team, I think that creates a
locker room fill of leadership. And I know I'm leaving
some guys out, but I think it's a collective thing.
I've seen a lot of that. I don't want to
always compare it to last year or anything like that,
but I've seen a lot of that this year, more
so than I have in anytimes I've been the coach here.

Speaker 8 (28:14):
Dave Hey coach the game the other night, Obviously a
lot of fouls were called and it just seemed like
the game was the flow was not there. How hard
is that when it seems like they're calling a foul
on everything to run your offense and you know, just
keep a keep a flow.

Speaker 2 (28:33):
Going, you know, I've turned games on here the last
week or so, and you're seeing that I turned the
game on last night. It was a two and a
half hour game. It's I don't I don't know what
it is, Dave. I mean, my guess is that the
officials have been given some you know, guide guidelines to

(28:53):
call every you know, like the set of tone early
in the year, because it's not just our game. You
see it in all these games and it's extremely frustrating.
But this is probably politically incorrect, but I just this
is my opinion. I don't know anything. I probably get
in trouble for this, but the TV. As soon as
the TV people start complaining the games or go too long,

(29:13):
somebody will tell them to stop calling vowels, you know,
I mean, and then we know how business works. But
I don't know that, but I believe that's how it works,
you know, that type of thing. But it always early
in the year. Every two or three years, they start
the year and they it's I don't think it's the
individual officials. I think there's some guidance that they're supposed
to do that, and then it always goes back and

(29:34):
it's it's I just don't like the inconsistency. If they're
gonna call it like that all year. Great, let's all adjust.
But there's no way they're gonna call a Big twelve
game like that. There's just no way. It'll be a bloodbath, right,
you know. And I should have had an official tell me,
you know, three years ago we had a kid get
hit across the face, bloody nose and I and I said,

(29:57):
that's a foul. He said, not in the Big twelve.
And then you know, and then sometimes you feel like
every hand checks a foul. And I don't blame it
on the officials. The rules are really difficult, but the
consistency is the thing I think as coaches, we all want.

Speaker 9 (30:13):
Brian coach earlier, I've asked you about the exhibition games
and what you were trying to draw from them. You've
been on record talking about how you like more and
you were looking to deal with some adversity as a team,
like see how you respond to things. I didn't feel
like you were in danger of losing against Dayton, even

(30:36):
when it got to two points, but you definitely had
some adversity. I just wonder is that something that maybe
stemmed from those exhibition games and some of that adversity
or is that too focus?

Speaker 2 (30:46):
Is it a little more broad than that. I don't
know if it's stemmed or not. I know that you
know we handled some of those stretches. They made runs well.
For this point in the year with who we are
as a team, we have to keep handling things well.
But the more you go through that, the better you
should get. I do think the exhibitions like if we've changed, right,

(31:13):
I mean, how many teams have a bunch of new players.
That's the majority now team. I mean it's like almost
every team. Well, we're still learning our rotations, We're still
learning the combinations that work well. We're still making adjustments.
We learn more about that in games, so we're still
in that early season process. I'd love to get some
of it out of the way in exhibition games.

Speaker 4 (31:36):
Tell us.

Speaker 10 (31:38):
Mine is actually multi layered. But first question is is
there a chance there's a home and home with Dayton.

Speaker 2 (31:45):
It is we returned that game next year. I'm not
paying that will be a very very difficult return game.
Everybody knows. I hope. I hope we have to find
some bearcats that sneak into date in the way that
some dates were stuck in to fit thirty Yeah, they did.

Speaker 10 (32:02):
The thing that was impressive. There are so many moving
parts because I looked at the roster and there are
three people who returned this.

Speaker 1 (32:09):
Year and one didn't play and one did not.

Speaker 10 (32:11):
Play last year. But the freshmen was the thing that
I picked up on how well they did in those circumstances.
I mean, they played literally above their freshman this to
call it that, and that's really kind of impressive to
watch and our hope is that they stick around for
a long time. Tyler was amazing. I mean he's one

(32:35):
of the ones that I think a lot of Bearcats
have been watching and see, come on out when you're
when you're healthy.

Speaker 2 (32:42):
That's been the best part. Yeah, are are We actually
have some old players. We've talked about it a lot.
Tyler McKinley's a freshman. Mustapha Chom should be a freshman.
He's a second year player, but he's the age of
all the freshmen. Keisha Tillery's a freshman. Halvin is a

(33:04):
second year player. He's still very young. Georgie Rodriguez is
in his first year in college basketball. Who am I for? Sawing?
And Shawn of b Ia as a freshman. So we
do have some really young players. The thing is they're
really good and they're gonna have freshman moments. But the
quality of players that are coming into the program is

(33:24):
really high. Like we just signed a young man, Kadan Allen,
who's one of the best combo guards in his class.
I love this. Nobody knew this about him. He's always
been considered a top thirty forty player. He's he's like
a year younger than everybody, like he might be better
and not might. He's better than people think he is
nationally and they have him as a four star type.

(33:46):
He's better because he's like a year younger than everybody
in his class. He should be in the next class.
We're recruiting really gifted players that are seasoned players like
Shawna Bayev and Keishan Tillery and Tyler McKinley. They've played
at the elite levels of high school basketball and they've
been in lots of big games. And it's not the
same as college, but different than the normal freshman.

Speaker 1 (34:07):
All Right, we'll take a time out. More questions from
the audience. When we continue. We are live at the
original Montgomery In home of the world's greatest ribs for
the Westmeller radio show and seven hundred WLW. We're back
at the original Montgomery In home of the world's greatest ribs.
It's the Westmeller Radio Show here in seven hundred WLW.
We appreciate the Bearcat fans who are here with us tonight.

(34:30):
We'll have some stuff to give away at the end
of the show, but you have to be here in
person in order to win. Keep that in mind in.

Speaker 2 (34:36):
The weeks to come.

Speaker 1 (34:37):
Our buddy Glenn is here tonight. Glenn, take it away.

Speaker 11 (34:40):
Hey, Wes, I've heard you on the radio. You're very
excited about this tape. I could tell one of my questions,
I owe this to Mo. Most says he are lists
that the ratio of turnovers to number of possessions an
important stat Right.

Speaker 2 (35:00):
If Most says it, for sure, I.

Speaker 4 (35:05):
Could help it.

Speaker 11 (35:06):
I can help and not notice that you're running the
North Carolina offense.

Speaker 4 (35:10):
Is that true?

Speaker 2 (35:11):
The elements of the fast break? For sure?

Speaker 4 (35:13):
Right right right.

Speaker 11 (35:15):
My next question is probably before Dan, is the eighty
six million dollars that Texas Texas playing. Is that for
all the students in the school from their null money
or is that just football football players?

Speaker 1 (35:27):
They're not paying eighty six million for football. But they
are paying a lot. They are paying as much as
any school in the country. But it's not eighty six million.

Speaker 11 (35:35):
That's what I heard.

Speaker 4 (35:36):
Okay, eighty six million.

Speaker 3 (35:38):
You get the Dallas Cowboys period, that's the whole defense.

Speaker 4 (35:42):
That's a lot of money. You got another question, No,
I'll take you all right, thanks, Clint Bob.

Speaker 2 (35:51):
So on most of our.

Speaker 12 (35:52):
Teams, we consider it lucky if there's that one go
to guy that you want to put them have the
ball at the end of the game. I look at
this team and I can see the possibility of three
or four guys who who you can want to have
the ball, and I think that is so much better
because it really puts the defense under pressure as the

(36:13):
clock's winded down.

Speaker 1 (36:14):
That's that one guy's Michael Jordan. But I get the point.

Speaker 2 (36:18):
Yeah, I think you know, as we get into tight games,
trying to learn and figure out where the ball should go,
how it should go there, and how to play. I
think that's something we've worked on in practice situations, but
it'll be important to define that as we keep moving forward.

Speaker 8 (36:36):
Dave one more for you here, coach. So earlier you
were talking about the scouting of players. How far back
do you go? This is the first question too, how
many how many people do you have that actually do scouting?

Speaker 2 (36:51):
How?

Speaker 8 (36:51):
I mean, what type of a job is that? It
would seem like it could be immense.

Speaker 2 (36:56):
It's interesting. Are all of our assistant coaches do scout?
And we divide up the scouting or the games and
within the coaching staff, so each assistant has a certain
amount of games. A grad assistant assists with each assistant,
so there's always at least two. And then you know,
Tim Buckley and Kelly Peters on my staff are involved

(37:19):
in every scout, so myself, Tim, Kelly and whoever's the
presenter and the GA. You know, there's a lot that
goes into each game. There's also a massive analytical breakdown.
And how far do you go back? I mean as
far back as you need to gain the information to
find an edge. So if it's a freshman this time

(37:41):
of year and they don't have a ton of tape,
you're going back to their high school tape and we'll
literally show Now everything's online so you can if you
want to work at it, you can find it. So
like our GA's they've they've been sent on some wild
goose chases. But if they know what they're doing, they
can figure it out. But yeah, there's a lot that
goes into it, a lot more than people would realize.

Speaker 4 (38:01):
Based on your recruiting.

Speaker 3 (38:03):
Like right now, you guys are shooting every fourteen seconds
of possession. That means you're constantly running, constantly moving. Does
that put emphasis on the type of athlete that you're
going after? No longer the three hundred pound guys that
can carve out space and the paint. Now you want
to get up and down. They have to be able
to run and endure the fast pace that you're doing.
So when you're talking about recruiting, does that factor into it?

Speaker 2 (38:27):
It always has. We've always tried to find guys that
could play defense, so we want to play They could
play in the open court. I don't mind a three
hundred pound guy, but I want to get him here
and give him to coach ray Feld and get him
to be two forty, right, you.

Speaker 1 (38:38):
Know, as long as he's not a three hundred pound
point guard exactly. It's a big guy that you're slimming down.

Speaker 4 (38:44):
That's okay.

Speaker 1 (38:45):
Five to ten to three hundred guys probably not gonna.

Speaker 2 (38:48):
Work five three hundreds probably not gonna work diabolically. I
mean a six eighty two hundred and sixty pound point
guard like Lebron James. I take care of me, you know,
But no, I think you were just looking for guys
that are physically able to play the way we want
to play, have the mental makeup that we're looking for.
And obviously we've learned this in the Big Twelve the

(39:09):
last two years. There's a certain element of skill you
have to have. That's probably was the biggest learning curve
is that you just in this league, you have to
have skill too. It can't just be, you know, great
defense and great rebounding. Nobody cares about great defense and
great rebounding when you don't win. I mean you got
to have some skills so that there's an element of

(39:31):
that too, and we've really made an effort to get
more skilled.

Speaker 1 (39:34):
So our last radio show was last Thursday. The following night,
you had a game, and so did Iona, and I
know a lot of Bearcat fans were excited to see C. J.
Anthony play for Iona for the first time. He had
twenty four points in that game. Through his first two games,
he's averaging fifteen and a half points, five assists, two
and a half rebounds. His team is two and zero.

(39:55):
It's so fun to follow him having this opportunity being
a great Bearcat for four years.

Speaker 2 (40:02):
It's like the greatest thing ever. I'm the biggest Iona
fan the face of the earth.

Speaker 1 (40:06):
Right now and are tied for second, right.

Speaker 2 (40:10):
It is. It's like you guys told me after I
think was at the Georgia State game. You said I
got some good news for you and that you guys
broke it. And then the first thing I did when
I got back to my locker was FaceTime CJ. But yeah,
I'm so thrilled because I've watched all the sacrifice and
the stuff that he's done to put himself in this position,
and I know how much he's enjoyed it, you know.

(40:33):
But like I told him, I'm not real impressed unless
you keep doing it so that type of thing. But
deep down, I am pretty impressed.

Speaker 3 (40:39):
Averaging fourteen seconds, what do you want that number to
get down to per possession?

Speaker 2 (40:44):
You know, That's how a lot of people talk about
pace of play, right, I think, and that number is
going to go down if you're scoring fast breaks. I'm
a little less concerned in average pace of play me
personally than I am, and how many quick baskets we get,
Meaning I want us to make sure we're scoring quick
and early in the shot clock consistently. But if we

(41:07):
don't and we have some longer possessions trying to play
the right way in the half court, I'm fine too, Terry.
So that number doesn't matter to me. It's more as
long as we're having as many I mean, how many
times can we get in the open floor in space,
get an easy basket, get fouled, get an offensive rebound,
get a good three point shot for a three point shooter.

(41:29):
If we can do that the whole game, the pace
of play number will be like eight seconds, and that'd
be the happiest guy in the world. But that's not
gonna happen every night. We still want those opportunities as
much as we can.

Speaker 1 (41:39):
So this year's game against Dayton was the third year
in a row you've played the Flyers. Th'relady on the
schedule for U D Arena next year, you're obviously playing
Xavier every year. You got Littleville on the schedule this
year coming up a week from tomorrow. Is that a
team that you would like to play on a regular
basis if they were willing.

Speaker 2 (41:57):
The Louisville's a home and home too. It's a neutralish
home and home that we play in Heritage Bank and
then we go return there in Freedom in Freedom Hall.
So it's it's gonna be.

Speaker 1 (42:10):
Cool because that's not where they play their games.

Speaker 2 (42:12):
No anymore they play. That's not their arena. That's like
they're it's old type. It's so it's the same idea.
They're two neutralish games. I guess you should say, so, yeah,
it's it's it's listen. I'm not opposed to local games.
Some people said, don't ever play local, and I think
that's a bunch of crap. Let's play good teams, let's

(42:33):
have great environments, let's get fan interest. You know, That's
never deterred me. I've always wanted to compete, but it's
not been like it's some what's local local local. We're
just looking for for good games that are good for
our non conference schedule, and it's happened to work out
with some of these local teams.

Speaker 1 (42:50):
That's going to be a really good one. Louisville obviously
has an excellent team this year. They're off to a
good start and uh, let's hope that bear Cat fans
pack Heritage Bank Arena Friday night.

Speaker 2 (43:01):
Hey, you know they're you know, some people picked them
to be a Final four team and Nations Championship contender,
and they've done a great job recruiting. My gosh, you
know the team they put together. So that should be
a I think they were up twenty against Kentucky last week,
who's also got a great team this year, and so
that should be a great test for us. We have
a game before that. We can't look too far ahead,

(43:21):
but that should be a great test for us against
a team that a lot of people have picked to
win the National Championship.

Speaker 1 (43:26):
Mount Saint Mary's is that next game coming up on
Sunday at six. Anything that you can point out about them,
I have not done any homework on Mount Saint Mary's.

Speaker 2 (43:35):
You know they're sound. They played West Virginia pretty close
opening night. Who's in our league? I watched that game today.
They're very sound. They have they play a little old
school in the sense that they'll play two true post players.
They have a big center that's really skilled, really good
in the pocket, good decision maker, they're sound, they run

(43:58):
good offense, they're in really good defensively, they're a team
that doesn't beat themselves. The other thing, they played in
the Sula Tournament last year, won a game in the
NCAA tournament, and they've returned a couple of players off
of that team. So it'll like all these games, we
have tremendous respect. It won't be an easy game, and
we can't look ahead to Louisville. We got to focus
in on what's in front of us, all right.

Speaker 1 (44:18):
Again, that game is coming up on Sunday at six
radio coverage. We'll start at five point thirty. That's going
to do it for our show tonight. Again, our thanks
to the folks who are here at the original Montgomery
and we've got some stuff to give away momentarily. If
you've been listening on the radio, thanks for tuning in
to the West Miller Radio Show on seven hundred WLW