12/16/24 - The Sean Miller Radio Show

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Live from the Dilly Bistro in Marymont. Welcome to the
Shawn Miller Radio Show on the Xavier Sports Network from Learfield,
presented by Try Help. Try Health provides surprisingly human care
that drives the best health outcomes. Be seen, be heard,
be healed. Visit trhealth dot com. But late, easy to drink,

(00:23):
easy to enjoy and buy. Dilly Bistro presenting sponsor of
the Sean Miller Radio Show. Now here are Joe Sunderman
and Byron Larkin.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
Welcome to the Sean Miller Show live from Dilly Bistro
and Marymount. I'm Joe Sunderman, along with Byron Larkin, the
head coach of the Xavier Musketeer. Sean Miller will be
here in a several minutes and we'll talk about the
reason he's late in the next couple of minutes.

Speaker 3 (00:49):
Here.

Speaker 2 (00:49):
Also, if you'd like to call in the numbers five, one, three, seven, four, nine,
fifty five hundred Musketeers are now eight and three on
the season lost heartbreaker on Saturday the Bearcats sixty eight
to sixty five. But the real news out of that game,
in my opinion, is the fact that Zach Fremantle actually
hurt his leg late in that ballgame. They're calling it
a lower body injury. When we get shot here, maybe

(01:10):
we'll get more information on it. But there's a chance
he may be out for the rest of the season.
He'll be out for an extended period of time with
the injury, and it just kind of makes you ache
a little bit. Zach Freemantle's had multiple foot surgeries in
battle back out in the greatest shape of his life
and was having some real success on the basketball court.
Average in seventeen and a half points and teams leading

(01:31):
rebound are, shooting the ball fifty four percent from the field,
all those great stats. But really the effort he put
back in to be even on the floor this year,
You've got to note that. And to see him potentially
missed the rest of the year is tough.

Speaker 3 (01:45):
Yeah, And he was playing so well. I mean that
UC game, Joe, he had eighteen point seven rebounds, four
assists in thirty five minutes of play, and I thought
for most of the game he was the best, arguable
the best player on the floor. And as you said,
you know, to come back from what he's come back from. Uh,

(02:08):
this being his I believe, sixth year of college basketball,
He's had to fight through a lot of adversity, and
he had multiple multiple surgeries on his foot. And uh,
I think he's got a unique perspective because he's been
around so long. Because what you you you love this
game of basketball, and it's such a big part of

(02:30):
your life up to this point, it's his entire life.
And then when you have it taken away from you,
you have a renewed appreciation for it. And he had that,
and so, uh, he's fought back multiple times. Now, we
don't know officially what the injury was. If it's his knee,
if it's his back. I've heard multiple things. Nothing officials

(02:53):
come out. They just said that it's been it's indefinite.
So he may come back. He might know. I don't know,
so we'll have to wait and see. But it's it's
a really tough blow for him and a really really
tough blow for the team.

Speaker 2 (03:12):
Zach was named for the second time this year on
the Big East Donna Roll for the last two games,
where he averaged seventeen points and eight rebounds and shot
the ball very well. But you mentioned it's a tough
blow for the for the team. It is, and it's
a practical side to the whole scenario, and the reason
that Sean is not here yet is they had to
push practice back. Understand the four thirty quarter five just
simply game planning. What do we do now because it's

(03:35):
a second major injury they've had this season to the
post position and you kind of got to refigure it
all out. So in your opinion, do they play quicker slower?
How do they how do they fill that? How do
you how do you attack now?

Speaker 3 (03:47):
What do you do?

Speaker 2 (03:47):
Is if you're the you have the squad that you have,
the personnel that you have, how do you do it well?

Speaker 3 (03:51):
You always like, I think you have to just reinvent
your team. Because Sean Miller always talks about playing fast,
play with pace. He wants to play fast. It's hard
to do that when you have seven eight players on
the roster. Uh, you could run out, you know, run
out of juice. So I think they're going to adjust

(04:13):
to the speed in which they play. I think they're
going to have to adjust pretty much everything they do defensively.
You know, we might see them have a different strategy,
but those are a lot of decisions that they're going
to have to make in a short period of time
because you know, Biggie's play is here on Saturday, Sean.

Speaker 2 (04:30):
Wednesday, Sean Millers arrived. Sean, you made record time from myself.

Speaker 4 (04:34):
Yeah, thank you, I appreciate it. Yeah, I hustled over.

Speaker 3 (04:36):
Here, you did.

Speaker 2 (04:37):
Yeah, we're you get finished about fifteen minutes ago to
practice we did.

Speaker 5 (04:41):
We bumped practice back. I know, I'm sure you've addressed
Zach's situation and uh, you know, we got that news
mid morning, and you know, that's that's why it's hard
to just kind of fix things and get everybody organized,
especially when you're leaving tomorrow for Yukon. So we just
back to practice away up so we could get accomplished

(05:01):
what we needed to. And but yeah, we're here, and look,
I don't know what you guys have or have not
talked about.

Speaker 2 (05:10):
But we would like to hear your take on everything.

Speaker 4 (05:13):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (05:15):
Look, you know when we lost Lacina Tree or I
quit talking about that a long time ago, in large
part because we talked a lot last year losing both
your own and Zach, and you know, it's a built
in excuse of you know, hey, why aren't you guys
winning more or being in a tournament and we have
great goals here and you're not accomplishing them. And you know,
last year, I think to some degree, man, we fought

(05:37):
all the way to the end, undermanned because of what happened,
and did the best that we could. We're in the
same situation right now. You know, you just can't lose
two starters. Zach was having a very good year. I
think the best was yet to come for him, and
and you know, to lose him there there is no

(05:58):
silver lining. There wasn't silver line with Trey or nobody
here really saw him play. So it's kind of it's
easier to deal with because he never entered the space
for us he did, so losing both of those guys
was was tough. Uh, there's a chance we could get
Zach back, it won't be for a long time. I'm
hoping that if he wants to come back, that he'd

(06:20):
be able to. We don't know that yet though, And
but what we do know is we're going to play
without him for an extended long period of time, So
you know.

Speaker 4 (06:30):
Stop of play. I think you know everything's out the door.

Speaker 5 (06:33):
You know, we have to do the best we can
right now in the current situation to to win the
most games that we possibly can right now, and you know,
everything from playing a box in one to walking the
ball up to playing Brad Colbert and Ian where we
have all all ideas on deck. And now for us

(06:55):
these next twenty games in three months, we have to
fight the good fight and do the best that that
we can under some tough circumstances.

Speaker 3 (07:03):
Coach. Relative to to to Zach's injury, someone said it
was back is his knee?

Speaker 4 (07:08):
Can you it's his knee.

Speaker 3 (07:10):
It's his knee. Do you he got hurt?

Speaker 5 (07:12):
Yeah, he got hurt on the play when he broke
the lab up and fell and it looked like potentially
he could have hurt his back. But somehow is I
think leg got bent and that's that's how the injury happened. Uh,
the extent of the injury, there has to be follow up,
second and third people looking at it. I don't think
we'll have the final This is what it is for

(07:33):
probably at least a week or two. It has a
lot of swelling there. But uh, you know, it's certainly
not good. And and look, my where our concern is
the most.

Speaker 4 (07:44):
Is just with Zach.

Speaker 5 (07:45):
I I can't imagine how he feels you know, both
imag jerme have gone through probably two of the most
injuries that I've seen in a career. Zach may actually
be number one now, but you know, just three surgeries,
four surgeries, all in a three or four year period
of time. Two three four season ending injuries. And I

(08:07):
think in this case, you know, he worked so hard
and and got his body in such great shape and
was off to such a good start with I think
the best yet to come. That it's you know, it's
devastating for him. And there's no really words other than
he knows we love him, care about him, are gonna
always have his best interest and uh and we cross

(08:30):
our fingers that that he potentially could return at some
point of this senior year. That that's what we really
don't know whether that can or cannot happen, but you
can imagine how disappointed he is.

Speaker 3 (08:42):
Coach. Did you know the moment when it happened in
the game, I mean, did he say, hey, coach, I'm hurting,
but I'm gonna go.

Speaker 4 (08:48):
Are you just no he finished the game?

Speaker 3 (08:51):
Yeah, so was it late in the second half.

Speaker 4 (08:56):
Probably mid second half, as would be my guess.

Speaker 3 (09:00):
Yeah, And he continued through.

Speaker 4 (09:01):
He continued to play.

Speaker 3 (09:02):
Yeah, well, there's a lot about him.

Speaker 5 (09:05):
Yeah, but I mean, he's been through an awful lot,
and you know, I think when people have asked me
about him, one of the things that I've said is
that because of all that he's overcome, and so many
different obstacles placed in front of him that he's seen
to climb over and fight through every one of them,
that now he is where he is in life on

(09:26):
the other side, as a college graduate taking grad classes,
being in his final year, that he's so much, so
mature and has grown so much and his future is
so bright that it's that adage you hear about a
lot when bad things happen, that if you get through
it and stay with it, at some point you'll look

(09:49):
back and say, in a weird way, I'm I'm glad
it happened, or because it happened, look where I'm at today.
And I think that for a long period of time,
that's how An exactly looked at his scenario, from about
the end of the summer until right now. I'm sure
right now he needs a reboot, as we all would

(10:09):
in that situation that he's in.

Speaker 2 (10:11):
Yeah, he was, I know, on the roads he'd always
come over and he would talk to me and he
was really engaging. He just said how mature he was
and something of a leader in my opinion of how
he conducted himself on the floor away from the floor
of this season, And that'll be a void to fill
for your ball Love, You're gonna need someone to step
into that. When you addressed your team today and let
your team know of the situation that Jack is not

(10:35):
available for a long period of time, what was your
message and how do you boost those players up?

Speaker 5 (10:41):
Yeah, I mean, I don't think it'll be just in
one meeting. You know, it's going to take time. But
I think the part of what we're trying to overcome
is the guys that are with us a year ago,
they experienced a lot of that already. So you know,
when it comes the following year, it's not a brain
and new scenario for them. It just it piles on

(11:04):
to what they've already experienced, you know. So I will
tell you this. I've thought about it in the last
I think fifteen seasons that I've coached. I've seen more
injuries in the two and a half years since I've
been back at Xavier than I did in the entire
fifteen years, and I'm accurate on that. There are injuries

(11:26):
that you forget have happened while while they occurred, And
the Kiki Tandy would be a great example in year
one where he suffered a Liz Frank injury, which is
rare in basketball. And remember he wasn't able to finish
the season, you know, he had season ending injury.

Speaker 4 (11:42):
So we've had quite a bit.

Speaker 5 (11:43):
I mean, you start adding him up, just Jerome and
Zach Alone in Lesina, it's a lot and there's nothing good.
It doesn't make a radio show fun, it doesn't make
practice fun, it doesn't make the game fun. It's just,
you know, it's shit out of luck. And so we'll
move forward and do the best that we can.

Speaker 2 (12:04):
Ye regardless, you have a game on Wednesday against a
top ranked team in the country, Connecticut, that's two time
defending national champions. So there's a practical side. Also, get
your stamp together and say here we are, this is
our personnel. And does that require a total reboot of
how the Xavier ball club approaches a game.

Speaker 5 (12:22):
Yes, I mean, and we use today's practice to begin that,
you know, just implementing I think some things that we
almost have to do to survive. And on the other
end of it, you know, just maybe tabling and getting
away from some things that we have been able to do.
You know, I'm not sure the pace that we're able
to play at being as undermanned as we are. Maybe it's,

(12:44):
you know, part of the game we play a certain way.
Part of the game we don't. We really have to
value the ball that's done us in. You know, if
you evaluate the non conference season with Zach, we've pulled
up short in two games in which certainly one of them,
but got really both of them. At TCU and at Cincinnati.
The game almost followed the identical path, and you know,

(13:06):
the three plus turnovers and particularly the late turnovers it
did us in in both games, and those that's something that, look,
if we had no injuries, we would be.

Speaker 4 (13:15):
Talking about right now.

Speaker 5 (13:16):
But without him being able to rebound and being able
to take care of the ball against the variety of
different defenses we face, you know, those are two things
that have to be in place for us to have
an opportunity to win.

Speaker 3 (13:29):
All right.

Speaker 2 (13:29):
This is a Sean Miller Coaches Show from Dilly Bistrow
and Merrymount on fifty five they are saved. Welcome back
to the Sean Miller Coaches Show, where Dilly Bistro and
Marrymount like to thank everybody for joining us again another
pack house. It's always great to see all the Xavier
fans join us here at Dlly Bistro.

Speaker 4 (13:48):
Can I bring something up?

Speaker 2 (13:49):
Sure?

Speaker 5 (13:50):
What about the free throw that the guy missed the
free throw and crossed the line before the ball hit
the rim.

Speaker 2 (13:56):
Should have been the whistled and never happened?

Speaker 4 (13:57):
Can I ask you?

Speaker 5 (13:58):
Can I ask you though, what are the repercussions? You know,
because look, you see did a great job and they
beat us. But think about that. That's like I don't
I don't know the analogy.

Speaker 4 (14:12):
It would be like in baseball the ball was.

Speaker 5 (14:16):
On the right side of the foul and they called
it a home run right or I don't know, in
the end zone it's a scoring play and and it
you know, but the fact you can't review it, I
think like that's something that if that's brought to your tension,
you should be able to go back and review it
because it's like a goaltending you know, hand on the rim,

(14:39):
because it looked if you miss a shot and you
leave before the ball hits the rim, you can't be
blocked down.

Speaker 2 (14:46):
The shooter needs to stay there until the ball hits
the rule.

Speaker 5 (14:48):
The rule is the shooter and anybody outside aren't able
to enter the three point line or break the free
throw line into.

Speaker 4 (14:55):
The ball hits the rim. That's a that's a.

Speaker 5 (14:58):
Tough one to miss. That's not the reason we lost.
There's five hundred plays in the game, and you see
beat us. They were the better team. But when something
like that happens, it makes you step back and say, wait,
that's something that can't be missed. Now, there's a lot
of place foul, not foul, thought the balls out of bounds,
didn't go out of bounds, agreed, disagree, and then you

(15:20):
forget the ones that go your way. But man, that's
one where that's hard to miss with three people there
in that time and setting.

Speaker 3 (15:28):
Coach, what can be reviewed and what cannot be reviewed?

Speaker 5 (15:31):
I asked, because I knew the answer. I think it
has to be. One thing that definitely can be reviewed
Byron is whether you're behind the line or not. And
that would be one point that I would make if
you can review whether it's a three point shot or not.
Minutes later, or thirty seconds later or four possessions later,

(15:53):
go to the monitor and look at it. Isn't that
free throw a scoring play? Like shouldn't you be able
to do the exact same same thing? And say, you
know what, upon further review, he crossed the line. Therefore
that basket doesn't count, Like you know, I don't know.
It's the one that went against us. So I bring
that up. But I haven't seen.

Speaker 4 (16:12):
That a lot.

Speaker 5 (16:12):
I don't if you guys have an a lot of games.
That's that's one where you just don't see, especially at.

Speaker 4 (16:18):
The end of a game like that.

Speaker 2 (16:19):
Actually has that play occurred? And now I'm making the
call on that. I aspire and I said, who scored that?
Just to make sure because you figure the free throw
shooter is not going to do it. We figured out
it was skilling, but it was an unusual looking play
from our perspective.

Speaker 4 (16:32):
Also, and by the way, he made a great play.

Speaker 5 (16:36):
I mean, look, he was going to miss it no
matter if he went, if he went across the val
line or not, right, So you know, it's like, what
the do you think about? That's the other point I
would make. What do you have to risk? You know,
in a situation where you know you're trying to miss
on purpose clearly something that you know. I'm sure that
the guardians of the game, as they say, will take

(16:57):
a look at it and make it better in the future.

Speaker 3 (17:00):
Coach, what what did you say to the officials. I'm
sure you said, hey, he crossed the line. Uh. And
what's their response to you. Sometimes are they like, yeah, coach,
we missed that one or.

Speaker 5 (17:11):
Yea, but what they say is we cannot review it.
So that was it. That was the That was the communication.
They just and they were right and they weren't able
to review it.

Speaker 2 (17:20):
I guess the interesting lesson about this, And Byron, you
talk about it all the time to air on the
side of aggression when you're playing the games, and I
know you talk about even with some of the players
you have on this year's team that are younger, you're
trying to build that type of forcefulness into their play.

Speaker 4 (17:37):
No doubt.

Speaker 5 (17:38):
And look, we had four guys on the line, and
in some ways, if you're eager and you anticipate, maybe
get a hand on the ball. But still it's difficult
when the guy shoots it as it's in the air
before it hits the rimit when you when you come
with that force, you know you're at least going to
be able to probably touch the ball or knock it out.
And to his credit, he put it in.

Speaker 2 (17:56):
I hate to even ask this, how many times have
you watched that replay?

Speaker 5 (17:59):
I only watched that once because it was so clear.
I don't think to watch it a second time.

Speaker 3 (18:04):
Joe, Okay, yeah, coach, After having a chance to watch
the UC film, what was your overall impressions? I from
a thousand point one thousand foot view, I thought your
defense was good enough to win that game. I mean
you held them to sixty eight points. That was the
lowest point total they had in that building all year.

(18:26):
Now you're only able to generate sixty five points. But
what what did you think was the main reason other
than you know, we know some timely turnovers down the
stretch was huge? But do you think your defense was
good enough in that game to win?

Speaker 5 (18:42):
I mean it was byron. I mean they had two
players combined for one for sixteen. Gisel James was zero
for eleven and twenty five minutes, and Dayde Thomas who
plays for him and sometimes with him, both very good players.
You know, they didn't have a good night. They combined
for one for sixteen. You know, usually when that happened,
it's tough to win the game. I give you see

(19:02):
a lot of credit. I think their defense is outstanding.
I think they played collectively together. They play with great effort.
You know, Mitchell when in person, he covers a lot
of ground. He's such a unique player. You know, he
block shots, he gets steals, he flies around the court,
and although he's not a great shooter, he does a
lot of things for their team, allows them to win.

(19:23):
And for most of the game we had number forty
one Lukasis in check, and to his credit, like a
lot of older good players, do you know, he came
through in the clutch. His big three and a couple
of scored twos really was the difference in the game.
Late up until late we had him in check as well.
But our defense was good. I mean, byron, they shot

(19:43):
thirty eight percent from the field, They made five threes,
they were five for twenty, They shot twenty five percent.
They got to the foul line. A lot some of
that was us, you know, the fouling at the end
of the clock, fouling jump shooters. One of the biggest
plays in the game was in front of their bench,
the clock under about four seconds, I think we were
down two, and we just reached in and sent them

(20:05):
to the free throw line. So, look, those are all
things that you have to do at the end of games.
We are not a composed team in the final minutes.
At TCU and at Cincinnati. Has shown us that that's
something that we're well aware of. We have to work
on it, we have to correct it. You know, with Zach,
I think that would have been a focal point of
these next two days. Without Zach, you have to get it.

(20:27):
You just kind of almost have to start over, right.
So we weren't able to address some of those things yet.
But to answer your question, I gave you a lot
of stats there. Of course, our defense was plenty good enough,
even rebounding they got thirty percent back. They're an outstanding
offensive rebounding team, and for most of the game we
held them in check defensive rebounding. Our fourteen turnovers were too.

Speaker 4 (20:51):
Much for us.

Speaker 5 (20:52):
And I know it sounds like a cop out because
I keep repeating it, but it is the biggest stat
for this year's team with Zach. Without Zach, we just
don't have enough around the rim to overcome fourteen turnovers.
And by the way, we've had games where we've had six,
where we've had nine, or we've had eight. We've had
a game where we've had a lot in one half

(21:13):
and very few in the second. And if you think
about when our best offense was in the UC game,
it was from after halftime to about the seven minute
mark or six minute mark. In that fourteen minute stretch,
we had one turnover maybe two. So you go first
half and then the last six minutes, that's when all

(21:34):
of our turnovers came in. If you think about our
game at TCU when we made that big run and
they had the call of time out and it looked
like we took control for the win, the same thing.
It was a period of time where we played long
stretches and long minutes without a lot of turnovers. So
when we turned the ball over, that's the best that
we can do, you know, right now, that's something we

(21:54):
really have to do a great job of here right.

Speaker 2 (21:56):
Forward, you're listening to the Sean Miller Coaches Show from
Dealing Bees, Drill and Marion. I'm on fifty five KARC.
Welcome back to Sean Miller's Coaches Show at Dilly Bistro
en brynmont Knew.

Speaker 3 (22:08):
This season Behind the Mic, presented by Deer Park Roofing
allows fans to watch every Sean Miller Coaches Show live
for Dilly b Strow. Check out the Xavier Men's Facebook
page to receive notifications on upcoming shows and check out
the shows you may have missed.

Speaker 2 (22:24):
Coach Daylon Swain has averaged I think twelve or thirteen
points over the last three or four games, playing some
really nice offense. Didn't have any rebounds against the Bearcats.
But at the same time, he's a second leading rebounder
on your ball club and has a potential to be
a force on the boards every night. And you talk
about him a lot about him being a young player,
but now he's been through a year and a half,

(22:44):
so to speak, and now you're really going to lean
on him to grab some rebounds because Zach Freemantle was
a great defensive rebounder. So do you pull Daylin aside
in your office and have a conversation with him and say,
here's the circumstances. You're well aware of it, this is
what we need.

Speaker 5 (22:59):
Yeah, I mean, you know Dalen has plenty of talent
to do it. You know, zero rebounds in twenty four minutes.
I know he's not proud of that. We've addressed it.
That was a key stat right there in that game
because it's such a physical game.

Speaker 4 (23:14):
And if you think.

Speaker 5 (23:15):
About it, we had thirty seven rebounds, they had thirty six.
They had twelve second shots we had nine. But we
had twenty eight defensive rebounds they had twenty four. You know,
the rebounding is such a big, big deal and in
the Big East a lot of times if you just
keep track of that, the team of the most rebounds wins.
So Daylan, you hit the best point you made, Joe is.

(23:37):
Daylan is an outstanding defensive rebounder. He actually ranks very
high of all Big East players when you go per game,
and when he gets a defensive rebound, he ignites our transition,
makes good decisions when he's in transition. Not only is
he at his best, so is our team. So a
lot of good things come with him getting defensive rebounds,

(23:58):
and it's something that is a hard talent to have.
He has struggled learning how to offensive rebound, and we're
on him to do it more I think that not
just Dayalen, but everybody on our team is going to
be asked to rebound the ball better. But I do
think that he'll be at the forefront of a lot
of this.

Speaker 2 (24:16):
I know you do a lot of rebounding drills where you're,
you know, throw a ball up and players try to
be through a box out or a checkout to get
to the ball. But are their techniques that he needs
to learn in terms of just a pattern of steps,
a way to like swim through box outs. And it's
a mental thing too, isn't it Where every time a
ball goes up, you think I need to go get
that ball. Yeah, and it needs to be instantaneous. They
really can't think about it, but they have trained yourself

(24:37):
to go get it.

Speaker 5 (24:38):
So, you guys have watched a lot of talented rebounders
here at Xavier, and I think the two the two
characteristics that they all have, regardless of how tall or
how high they can jump, if they're good rebounders is
you know, they they're physical, right, they like to contact,
they don't mind contact, They thrive in contact, and and

(24:58):
it's they go get the ball. They go get it.
You know, David West, you know, I don't know how
well he blocked out. I can remember when we were
with him during his junior and his senior year. A
lot of times we do blockout drills and would send
him down the other end and tell the rest of
the guys like, hey, he gets rebounds.

Speaker 4 (25:17):
We're not worried about him.

Speaker 5 (25:19):
But the reason you didn't want him to get hurt,
you didn't want him to get angry. You know, something
inevitably would happen where someone would elbow him. He would
elbow somebody and next thing you know, you have a
different problem. So but I don't know if David thrived
with his blockout. But was he physical yes, obviously, did
he care a lot about it? Half great hands. Did

(25:40):
he go get the ball?

Speaker 4 (25:41):
Yes?

Speaker 5 (25:41):
Yes, And you're talking about to think about the examples.
We gave two fifteen year NBA players as examples, but
they're guys like Kevin Fry. You know that was an
outstanding rebounder and he did it because he was again
went and got the ball, was physical. Some block out
better than others. Joe and I think Dylan could he

(26:03):
block out better? Yes, going and getting the ball, being
physical and then getting a couple on offense. You know
one tip, get one and put it back in. It
will mean a lot to us moving forward, and I
think we're certainly trying to convince him and coach him
to be.

Speaker 4 (26:18):
Better in that area.

Speaker 3 (26:19):
Coach, moving forward, You've got a lot of kind of
decisions to make relative to your how you're going to play.
But someone came up to me during the during the
commercial break and was asking like, hey, can we talk
about who's available now? What your rotations look like? Who's
going to be available?

Speaker 4 (26:38):
Yeah?

Speaker 5 (26:38):
So, uh, we have available Daveon McKnight at the point, guard,
Ryan Conwell at the two, Marcus Foster, and Dalon Swain
at our wings. Those four positions haven't changed. We have
Jerome Hunter who can play either spot although he's a

(27:00):
small five, and we have John Yuglee as a backup
five only. So if you go through that, I think
I named six players. Dante Maddox becomes seven and then
Cam Fletcher will enter the fold. We worked with him
today and look, Cam has been practicing. He has had
a great attitude, he has stayed ready. We have told

(27:24):
him all along. Then as we get into the Christmas
holidays with his health is you know, strength is conditioning
that that would be a time, if it was going
to come, it would come about that. And it got
told you that as well, and you know, sure enough
as we're around the holidays, that time has come for
maybe a different reason, but even still trending a good

(27:45):
in a good way. Cam can help us rebounding. You
talked about rebounding. I think among the many things that
he does well, that might be the best thing that
he brings to the table. We've seen it in practice,
He's done it early in his career, and again, we
just got to keep I'm healthy, right, so you know
that I think I named eight right there. Those are
the eight that are available. If we went beyond eight,

(28:07):
I would go with Brad Colbert and Ian you know,
two older walk ons where we would sprinkle them in
for a short burst. And that's where we're.

Speaker 4 (28:16):
At, all right.

Speaker 2 (28:17):
This is Sean Miller Show from Dilly Bistro and marymunt
on fifty five. Karci, Welcome back to the Sean Miller
Show here at Dilley Bistro.

Speaker 3 (28:27):
When you're out of town and want to keep up
with live colleage sports, be sure to download the new
Varsity Network app. It's available for both Apple and Android.
Listen to College Sports Live with the Varsity Network app.

Speaker 2 (28:38):
And but like proud sponsor, is Xavior Athletics easy to drink,
easy to enjoy? And Coach, you talked about your offense,
and I'm sure you're still sorting it out. Whether you
play slower, whether you play quicker, Maybe you play part
of the game at at a kind of limited pace
and pick ten minutes and go as quickly as you
can and maybe slow it down again. Looking on the
defensive end, you've been a man a man pretty much
all season long. I guess that all on the table.

(29:00):
Also as to what you may employ defensively.

Speaker 5 (29:03):
Yeah, no, we have to play some zone now just
to protect foul trouble. And you know, in to some degree,
you hate to use the term rest because when you're
on defense you have to work at it. But it's
a different way of playing. And uh, yeah, we're gonna
we're gonna have to do that, and here we go.

Speaker 3 (29:19):
Coach, you've been coaching a long long time. Have you
ever been in a situation like this where eleven games
in you've got to basically reinvent your team?

Speaker 2 (29:31):
No?

Speaker 5 (29:31):
You know, the one time that a similar thing happened
was here, and if you remember Brian Thornton, who at
the time was an All Atlantic ten player, our big guy,
he went down and he broke his leg in the
sentas it was, probably, but the difference was it was
more in February, so we had to kind of we

(29:52):
had to go from like the second week of February
all the way into March, and if you remember, we
kind of.

Speaker 4 (29:59):
Reshuffled some things.

Speaker 5 (30:00):
Josh Tuncan played the five, which then became our way
of playing from that point forward, and different players took
on different roles and we ended up becoming really good,
probably a better team than we were before Brian even
got hurt. But we had about a four to six
week window sprint to get there and then it ended.

(30:21):
And the hard part for us right now is just
we're at the beginning. You know, we have our entire
Big East in front of us, and as you guys know,
foul trouble, injuries, cold weather, tough games. You know, you
just you're always calling on older players depth and it's
not to your advantage to not have it.

Speaker 2 (30:42):
Coach, you have a two game stretch right now, in
fact of three games stretch. It hasn't happened since twenty seventeen,
where Xavier played three ranked opponents in a row. You
have Connecticut and then you have a Marquette. They're both
highly ranked ball clubs. Then you do get a break
in terms of the Christmas time, you know, so you
get what eight or nine days, and you know, if
you can kind of maybe steal a game or so

(31:04):
here and get into that break of you some time
to actually kind of reconstitute your strategy and your ball
club a little bit.

Speaker 5 (31:10):
No, that break comes at a good time for us,
for sure. Joe, You're you're you're right on and uh.
And look, the thing about the order of the games is,
you know, everything's different now because of what just happened
this morning, but we're all gonna play ten at home
and ten on the road. The order can make you
stirt crazy. It's like you listened to these NFL coaches,

(31:33):
the great Mike Tomlin. You know, I was listening to
him after the Steelers lost to the to the Eagles,
and any any somebody asked him like, are you're gonna
let this loss? You know, like maybe you worry you're
gonna get on a roll and lose and he said,
like kind of come on, man, like you know, this
is the NFL. Everybody understands that you're gonna have tough pockets,

(31:56):
you're gonna have injuries, you're gonna lose one on the road.
You gotta be able to bounce next Sunday. And that's
what makes the NFL so great, right, like the parody,
even the Bengals. You look at the Bengals right now.
You know, they come off and win, you get another one,
you get another one the next thing. You know, like, wow,
they're hot. Look where they're at. They're almost a playoff team,
and how do they get there? They can't worry about

(32:16):
the order of the games or what just happened. Then,
I think in the Big East, we learned that a
year ago, even two years ago. You have these tough
stretches and if you get caught up in it and
it can do you in you know, I can flip
it on you and say, once these two games are over,
in my mind, they may be two of the toughest
games in the entire conference. You know, the eighteen from
that point on, look at it from that perspective. So

(32:37):
we have to play all ten at home, all ten
on the road and then once we do it, then
we'll see where we're at.

Speaker 2 (32:44):
This is a Sean Miller Coaches Show from Dilly Bistro
and Mary About on fifty five KRC. Welcome back to
the Sean Miller Show. As you know, the students are
on holiday already. They'll be out until sometime at January.
Is a result, there's some really nice deals on tickets
available over at SENTA Center. There's a three game holiday
pack Marquette's Seaton Hall in Shane John's for one hundred
and twenty five dollars. You can sit down in the

(33:05):
student level. Also for the Saint John's game, there's two
tickets for fifty dollar and there's a big East Mini pack.
So if you're interested in some nice holiday games and
some good seats, give the Give him a call over
Xavier and we'd love to see you at SENTA Center.

Speaker 3 (33:19):
Coach, you had a couple of players their first experience
to Across Town shootout. It was a big time environment.
You really can't tell them what it's like. They kind
of have to experience it. And how do you think
the new players to the shootout, like Ryan Conwell and
Marcus Foster, how did they date Dante Mannix, Dante Mannix,

(33:44):
how they kind of responded to that environment.

Speaker 5 (33:47):
You know, they clearly were ready and wanted to win
the game Byron. You know, in Ryan's case, you know,
one of the things that I talked to him about
today is, you know, he's a marked man. You know,
his ten games that he's played here with us, and
what he did a year ago. You know, he's going
to be guarded by the other team's best perimeter player.
They now know how we try to get him shots,

(34:09):
what he's good at, what they want to take away.
They're going to make that difficult. And I thought, again,
you see, we talked about it. I thought their ball
pressure was terrific. You know, they won the game with
their defense. They did an amazing job on him. And
then to Ryan's credit, he didn't fold. He stayed in
and when we really need him real, real late, he

(34:29):
delivered and had two huge three point shots, one a
four point shot. But he's only going to get better.
When I talked about Zach and him, you know, eleven
games seems like in one way a lot it's the
end of a non conference season. But man, we have
so much in front of us that as they get
used to playing, and by.

Speaker 4 (34:47):
The way, we have to help them as well.

Speaker 5 (34:50):
You know, like Davon, teams are really pressuring Davon. There
are things that we can do to relieve some of
that pressure, and we started to work on that a
little bit here today for Ryan being creative and making
sure that we free him up and are able to
make life easier for him out on the court, knowing
that the other team is so well aware of where
he's at. But you know, at the end of that game,

(35:11):
Ryan was six for thirteen from the field, three for
eight from three, six defensive rebounds. He had seventeen points,
and like a couple other guys, had some key turnovers.
He had zero assist in three turnovers. And Byron, some
of those turnovers aren't just our players, and some of
it is teams are doing a good job defensively. You know,

(35:32):
you see is a very good defensive team, and you
felt that through the game they did a very very
good job. And that's why I even hesitate to bring
up earlier. I didn't have anything to talk about, so
I brought up the free throw. You know, we didn't
lose the game because of that play. As a matter
of fact, if I'm him and I noticed that I'm
going to shoot the free throw and miss it, he

(35:53):
had nothing to lose by running in there. All they
could do is say no. But they didn't, and he
got it and he put the ball. He put the
ball in. So but yeah, Daniel Skillings, you know that's
the guy who did it. In no way is that
the determining factor. I can't believe. I can't believe the
refs missed it, But you know what, they probably miss

(36:14):
some other calls during that forty minutes that help us.

Speaker 2 (36:16):
Coach Marcus Foster looking at the task today, I was
I'm not really surprised, but maybe a little bit. He's
fourteen to thirty from three point range. I mean, that's
almost fifty percent. He's shooting the ball very very well.
Are you looking for him to take a few more
threes and score more points as we move forward? Here?
Seems like he's becoming much more comfortable in the offensive end.

Speaker 5 (36:33):
He is one of the things that Marcus does a
really good job of, is he takes good care of
the ball. Like if you look at his assistant turnover
ratio on the season for as many minutes as he's
playing in the role that we have him. I mean,
he's one of our really really low turnover players and
we respect that. It's one of our best defensive players.
He's an outstanding defensive rebounder for somebody his size, you know.

(36:56):
I think that we're learning him just like he's learning
the college game at this level, and that is what
is he good at, what is he not good at?
But I do think that freeing him up and allowing
him to score more, putting him in a position to
get open threes, is a good thing for us.

Speaker 2 (37:12):
Moving forward quickly, yukon, what's your thoughts and the last
year you thought they hit a tremendous ball club, even
better than their previous national championship team. How are they
shaping up this year?

Speaker 5 (37:21):
I think they're as good as they were last year.

Speaker 4 (37:24):
I really do.

Speaker 5 (37:24):
I think that their offense is something that I haven't
really seen. The combine skill and talent and the ball
moves are very difficult to defend. I think they'll end
as our America's best offensive team. Their defense is improving.
It's not where it once was last year, but right
now they're top five in the country in blocks.

Speaker 2 (37:45):
You're playing them at Excel Centers. You prefer that as
opposed to they're on campus arena.

Speaker 5 (37:49):
I would prefer not playing them right now, but we're
going there and they're good, so we have to be
at our best.

Speaker 2 (37:55):
They are good, they have no question about it.

Speaker 3 (37:56):
So well, they are beatable now. They lost three games
in a row out in mi Head in Mouth, yep.

Speaker 5 (38:01):
And since then they're much better. They've they've improved certain things.
Their defense is getting better. You can really see it.
They've gotten Texas, Baylor, and Gonzaga back to back to back,
so they're playing really good basketball right now.

Speaker 2 (38:15):
I'm kind of interested. We just have about fifty seconds here.
You mentioned cam Plature a little bit, the fact that
the Christmas break, and that's when you were kind of
shooting for him to work he maybe into more playing time.
What type of score work can he be for you?
I know he's a good rebounder, and he's big and
he's strong, but can he score the ball at twelve
points a game for you?

Speaker 5 (38:31):
Think's going he an open three point shooter, Joe. He
can make open threes. He's an excellent offensive rebounder. In transition,
can really make plays.

Speaker 4 (38:41):
At the rim.

Speaker 5 (38:41):
You know, limiting him dribbling like decision making, that's something
he's not quite as good at. And defensively, you know,
as I think he's getting smarter at our system, learning
what to do and not do. You know, Cam's a
pretty big guy. He's not like a six footer or
six y two guy out there.

Speaker 4 (38:56):
You know.

Speaker 5 (38:56):
He gives us another big wing with long arms, so
he's gonna get his opportunity.

Speaker 2 (39:01):
Thank everybody for joining us for the Sean Miller Coaches
Show from Dilli Bistro, Marymountnet fifty five KRC and the
Varsity Network.

Speaker 1 (39:20):
Live from the Dilly Bistro in Marymont. This has been
the Sean Miller Radio Show on the Xavier Sports Network
from Learfield, presented by Try Health. Try Health provides surprisingly
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(39:42):
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