Sean Miller Quotes (54 Quotes)

Recently against us, if you're that guy that can't make a 3, you usually knock a few down. It was good to see that percentage come our way.

We knew we had no choice but to come together or it's going to get worse. When you lose four out of five games and you go through what we went through, the best way to get an identity back is to make things hard. I thought our team really responded.

Equally impressive, was watching Stanley Burrell manage the game. If you watched him as freshman, he would become frustrated as he wasn't getting shots and other parts of his game deteriorated. Not any more. He's seen tremendous growth. With that growth, that's one of the reasons we're playing better is that he's continued to mature.

Brian went for the rebound and fell down, so in a sense, the game-wining shot came on a 5-on-4 opportunity. To their credit, they buried the 3. But they didn't have to go against our defense.

I'm not sure. I hesitate to go one way or the other. We have to get back on track for a big home game on Saturday. We have to come back from a big loss. These next two days will be big for us. We'll learn a lot more about our team after these next couple days.

He's an everyday guy. When you're a walk-on, that's the hardest part, because they don't get the recognition and the accolades. They have to be really team-centered and in it for the right reasons. In Keenan's case, the benefits of it aren't individually as much as they are for the team.

Our players deserve a lot of credit just for making the game hard on him. You look at his field goals that he made, the shots were contested. I thought we did an excellent job tracking him.

You lose your confidence when the shot doesn't go in. He seemed to really regain it in the second half, and I hope he keeps it all season. Sometimes you just need one to go in to make that hoop bigger.

We're going to try our best to provide as much help to the guy guarding him on that area of the floor. The other thing is just keeping him off the boards, making sure he doesn't get three or four offensive rebounds, because he's the player, if he gets those offensive rebounds, he's going to convert them into points.

We have a lot of problems as a basketball team.

There were so many times where they would come out of a pileup, and then it's bounce pass, dunk. That's what makes them who they are. They have great depth and quickness.

We have to be a team that does not do that. We can't afford to give it up. (That's) what we can control, and we did a nice job.

One of the keys to us is sometimes we have some great baskets and have a real good pace to how we play on offense, and then it seems to slow down. When the offense goes into one of those droughts, we're not moving it up the floor. Not necessarily quick shooting, but just the pace. We're always better when we have a quicker pace. ... Brian (Thornton) being able to run, and Brandon Cole or Will (Caudle) being able to run when Brian's out. ... Make or miss on their end, we want to be able to get the ball up the court.

I would use the word alarming. We're a team that practices very well and hard, and we pass the ball well, and we've shown we can rebound. Through nine games, we all have to take a hard look at what we need to do to shore that up. If we could shore that up, we'd have a terrific team.

I think that, generally speaking, you're on one side of the fence or the other. When I'm out in public, a lot of UC fans tell me they cheer for Xavier, and then I spy on them during games and they're cheering like crazy for UC.

That's when we want to be the same. That's when I hope (media critics) are continuing to say we're doing well on defense. If that's the case, we have something special going on.

There are games that are going to be very difficult road games. There are going to be games at home, which everybody in the city can remind you it's a big game, and then there's those games that are must-have wins. And that's what (today's) game is it's a must-have win.

People at Xavier are wholeheartedly on the same page. The basketball program is treated with amazing respect. In return, you do what you're supposed to. You feel very responsible to see things through because the support is so consistent.

They may be desperate, loose and tight. But the players are very excited about the tournament, make no mistake about it. We've certainly shown we can play with anybody in our conference. Now, whether we can break through and make those big plays to advance, that's going to be another story.

Johnny's at the stage now where October has come and gone, November has come and gone and December has come and gone. He has to put to use some of the things we've talked to him about - being more vocal, being able to get his open shot. Those are the things we've talked to him about. It's now time for him to make that improvement.

He's becoming more aggressive. He made a couple good plays, and he's a much better defender. I've tried to be hard on him recently in practice to make him more vocal and to try to prepare him for what's to come. He really responded.

Not because the coach changed his mind, but because looking at these past two days, those five guys have done a great job. Their attitude has been very good. We've put our players to the test defensively, and just looking at them working together, they're the five guys that should start based on those two days. If it would be any other way, we would make a change.

I thought our small lineup looked good. That may give us the best chance to both score on offense and maybe be a little more functional on defense, but we have to take a look at that right now. I think when we were at our best (Saturday), we went small and tried to spread the court, and that really opened up some driving lanes, and as those closed, it opened up some great 3-point shots.

It's become a mental thing for him. Unfortunately for Dedrick, and I really mean this, he's not going to get near the credit he deserves for improving in a lot of the other areas of his game. I've never seen him more in control of our team. He's more sure with his ball handling. When's the last time you saw that really bad turnover Defensively he's been terrific.

I think we've certainly been better (defensively) in the past, but we're going to have to play defense in a little different way now. It's not going to be that grind-it-out, man-to-man style. We're going to change it up, mix some things in, and (Wednesday) our zone helped us.

The other four players are really important when he gets the ball. We want to crowd him and trap him and try to make him get rid of the ball. One part of his game that I hope is apparent is that he'll turn it over. I hope that happens tomorrow.

We're very thankful and fortunate to be in it. I wanted to watch that (selection) show and double-check and make sure they were giving the tournament champion in the A-10 an automatic bid. No matter who they were going to tell us to play, we were going to be excited. We're the most excited team in the country.

It allows our players to be among themselves and go up against the opposing crowd. When you're in the situation we're in, last game of the season and everything we've gone through in recent weeks, I think it's good we're away and allow our guys to get some focus.

Looking at his development, he could really make our team much different down the stretch.

As a coach at Xavier, you can't think of it in those terms, because you'd just have unnecessary sleepless nights. You only get to play them one time. We're not going to play them for another 300-and-whatever days. You just try to focus on the whole, doing the best you can for the entire season.

A lot of broking in money markets is screen trading, where you're putting numbers into a computer. That can't happen with us. There are too many external factors, like dates changing. It is a personal business. You provide the social interface between companies and clients - you're dealing with people's emotions. You need to have a feel for what someone wants to do. It's almost like delving into their psychology.

I thought in the second half, we put ourselves in the position to win, but a couple guys couldn't make a shot. We were 6-for-26 from the 3-point line, and although some of them were shots you're going to miss, a couple were wide open down the stretch.

We're not nearly the team we were rebounding the ball as we were with Thornton. As we come into this game with Charlotte, we're a little like them in that we love to make 3s. ... Before we could win games if we had bad shooting nights, but at this point we can't.

I can't say enough good things about Adam Morrison as a player. ... Relentless.

It always get everybody's attention when you get up at 515 and have to get taped and then go (practice) for an hour and a half. We'll keep doing that until we get a commitment to get after loose balls. We're a team that's going to have to beat you with sheer numbers. We need eight or nine guys getting after it. When we have a couple guys going their own separate ways and we turn the ball over and not get after rebounds, we'll have a hard time beating anybody.

I didn't just come to Xavier this is my fifth season here. I've known the deal all along. Two years ago, I wasn't the coach and the same thing happened to him. We were 10-9, and the same thing happened.

We were at the low end of the ACC, and our big guy got hurt. We ended up winning nine of the last 11 and were within four minutes of winning the ACC championship. On offense, we became a very unique team to play against, and we had a lot of different guys make shots. Sometimes when you play without a big man, it's tough on the other team. They have to adjust to you.

It's not about us going into a laboratory fixing a bunch of different problems as much as it is rekindling what made us good a short time ago. ... We've been able to do that. It's only been a couple days, but our team has done a very good job.

B.J. is going to play more minutes. He's the only player who will have more opportunity now than he did before. It's up to him to take advantage of it. B.J. has a bright future. I give him credit - he stuck with it these months when he wasn't playing much. His work ethic has really come to the forefront. It allows him to be successful in mid-February after not playing a lot.

To me, he's as unique a college basketball player as I've seen in some time. The thing I love the most is that he loves the game and works tirelessly at the game. You can't have the offensive repertoire that he has unless you spend hour upon hour in the gym. As a coach, that's something you really admire.

He's one of those guys that hates to miss a shot more than any player I've ever seen. When he misses one, his response is 'That's it for me'. We want to get him out of that.

Stan wants to win. You have to figure out what keeps him from getting 21 in the second half too. In no way does that diminish his game - especially in the first half, he was the difference - but when you see a guy play like that, you wonder if you can get that in the second half. Maybe not 21 points, but someone who can continue to play the same way.

They have a lot of different players who can guard (Burrell). When they switch screens, the next guy in line that takes him is a lot of times as quick. And I thought they did a really good job of keeping us out of transition tonight.

He embarrassed our university, our program, his family and himself.

There's a lot of intrigue and mystery, and trying to find out what other people are up to. Every day is different. Shipping is a market, so it tends to fluctuate and peak. If you're looking for consistency, you're in the wrong job. You've got to be extremely driven and thrive on pressure. In fact, if you enjoy the adrenalin buzz - and it is an amazing adrenalin buzz - it feels more frustrating when the market fluctuates the other way and things go quiet.

He plays with a fire and an energy. He's out there playing hard, and you know he wants to win. He shows emotion in the right way. His body language is of a guy who's excited to be playing. When you bring all that to the table, he's emerged as a solid contributor. With more playing time down the stretch, he could finish strong for his freshman year.

It gets everybody's attention when you get up at 5 a. m.. We'll keep doing that till we get a commitment to get on the floor, to get loose balls, to do the things we need to. ... We have to figure out where we stand. I'm not trying to have a boot camp. For us at Xavier right now, we have to determine who needs to start and who needs to play minutes.

It almost seems like the 15th game of the year where in one half we look a certain way and another we look another way. That's where our basketball team is, can we put a solid, consistent string of 40 minutes together You like for (play) to be smooth across, where we're the same team from start to finish.

One of the easiest jobs you have in this town right now is under the eight-minute mark, being a perimeter player on our team. You're going to get an open shot, and you're going to have to step in, because Brian Thornton has established himself as such a presence that teams are going to make choices to take him out of it. As they do, we're at that next step - 'You're going to shoot it.' So that's what we have to work through.

He did a great job. That's my message to him. Don't hang your hat on the 3-point shot, because you're way, way more than that. Now, it'd be nice if he'd make a couple. I've got to think that's eventually going to come around.