Cincinnati Head Coach Wes Miller Addresses Media Ahead of Big 12 Play
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00:00 Uh, when you take a look at BYU,
00:03 metrics daily, offensively,
00:06 uh, have you been sleeping much?
00:09 [laughs]
00:10 I'm out of breath right now
00:12 because I forgot I had a press conference.
00:14 [laughs]
00:15 Somebody told me so I had to run from the office down here
00:18 and anybody that knows that
00:20 the distance from there, I covered,
00:23 I think I did it in about 45 seconds.
00:25 I was running pretty good.
00:27 And I didn't want to run through
00:29 Katrina's practice so I took a longer path.
00:33 So anyway, let me catch my breath.
00:36 I hope our players are in better shape than me.
00:38 Um, no, listen, uh,
00:41 it's going to be this way
00:43 in the Big 12 every night.
00:45 You know, to sit here and talk about,
00:48 you're going to be able to stand up, sit on this podium
00:50 and talk about how great the other team is
00:52 and how difficult of a challenge it's going to be
00:55 and how great the environment is.
00:59 BYU's all those things.
01:01 Um, you look at the way they're shooting the ball
01:04 better than anybody in the country.
01:06 Like sometimes as coaches we say things
01:10 not necessarily totally literally,
01:12 just to kind of emphasize.
01:14 They are the best shooting team in the country
01:16 and that's not just to emphasize,
01:18 they can shoot, they are literally
01:20 and statistically the best three-point shooting team
01:22 in the country.
01:23 They shoot it at every position.
01:25 Their ball movement is phenomenal.
01:29 They're great in transition.
01:31 You look at the runs they put on people.
01:33 You know, it seems like at least once,
01:36 sometimes twice a half,
01:38 they just go on a massive run
01:40 and that's how they've been able to push leads out
01:42 to 20, 30 points most nights.
01:45 Um, and then I think that the things
01:48 that you're seeing on tape
01:50 is how physical they are defensively.
01:52 They're old, they're tough,
01:54 their rebounding numbers jump off the page
01:56 and you watch them, they really crash the offensive glass.
02:00 Again, physical, old, tough.
02:02 So they're a really good basketball team.
02:04 And again, I think this will be a theme all year
02:07 is we're going to be facing really good basketball clubs
02:09 night in, night out in this league.
02:11 BYU's one of the best teams in the country,
02:14 top ten team in America right now.
02:16 Um, I've heard the environment is out of this world.
02:21 Uh, I've never been there, haven't experienced it,
02:24 but everybody says it's one of the most underrated venues
02:26 in college basketball.
02:28 So we'll do our job to prepare this week.
02:31 [inaudible]
02:44 Yeah, so Aziz has been working back in.
02:47 Again, wouldn't say he's 100%.
02:51 Um, hasn't finished a practice yet,
02:54 but he's been working back in this week,
02:56 so that's a good sign moving forward.
02:58 Uh, CJ's still shut down.
03:01 [inaudible]
03:14 Yeah, I don't know.
03:17 I don't speculate too much.
03:19 For me, it's more we have practice today at 3 o'clock,
03:24 and I feel that every day.
03:27 The practice is here, and we got to get better
03:30 and make the most of the time that we have out on the floor together.
03:33 Um, just like whenever you play in a tough environment on the road
03:39 against the top ten team in the country,
03:41 we've done that here.
03:43 You know, there's some added energy that you can feel around you
03:48 or within the team.
03:50 I don't -- I'm sure that will be there when the time comes.
03:53 But, yeah, our guys know how good the league is.
03:56 As you said, everybody's talked about it for the last year
04:00 and some change around here.
04:02 But to speculate on, like, what that feels or means,
04:05 you got to ask them.
04:06 I'm worried about practice today.
04:08 [Inaudible]
04:22 Come up with BYU?
04:23 BYU.
04:25 Oh, man, they -- if I sit here and talk about one of BYU's players
04:30 that I'm leaving out, you know, a handful of others,
04:35 they have great players.
04:36 They have great players.
04:37 They have old players.
04:38 They have skilled players.
04:39 They have tough players.
04:41 We have our hands full across the scouting board,
04:44 like talking about one guy, I think,
04:46 especially, you know, five days or so before the game.
04:50 I think it would be a mistake.
04:53 I know you're going to give me --
04:56 I know you're going to give me one game at a time.
04:58 But the first six games at this conference title are --
05:03 I don't know.
05:05 When I honestly say I couldn't recount to you,
05:09 if you told me my life depended on it,
05:11 I couldn't tell you our next six games.
05:14 Obviously, at some point I looked at it.
05:16 But I don't know.
05:17 I know that we play BYU Saturday.
05:22 And I know we play Texas at home Tuesday.
05:25 And I will not worry about Texas until the buzzer sounds against BYU.
05:31 And I could not tell you who is after that.
05:33 I just know this, it's somebody really damn good,
05:35 because this league is really damn good.
05:38 The first six you go at BYU, at Baylor, at Kansas.
05:46 But that's why you get into the state, right?
05:48 That's what you want.
05:50 Sure.
05:51 Yeah.
05:52 Are you making a statement or asking a question?
05:54 I was trying.
05:55 But you don't know who you play outside of --
05:58 No, I just think that, you know,
06:00 of course we broke the schedule down and we got it back in the fall.
06:05 But you could throw it into a hat and dump it on the table
06:09 and organize it any way you want.
06:11 Every couple of days you've got a big challenge.
06:13 So to get too caught up in what's going to happen beyond today
06:18 or the team we're preparing for today, I think is a massive mistake.
06:23 From the media standpoint, or people that are analyzing it,
06:32 you could go, "Oh, well, this team's a top five team in the country.
06:36 This team's a top ten team.
06:37 Those are the hardest games."
06:39 There is not one game left on our regular season schedule
06:42 that's not an extremely difficult game.
06:45 Regardless of where that team is metrically,
06:47 every team in this league is very, very good.
06:50 So worried about who and where.
06:51 I mean, it doesn't matter who and where.
06:52 It's all going to be a challenge.
06:54 But one that you embrace, one that you're excited for,
06:59 as long as we do the right things to prepare and work every day.
07:02 And that's where my head is on a Tuesday.
07:04 Is it Tuesday or Wednesday?
07:06 Yeah, I lose track of days.
07:08 On a Tuesday in early January with a week without games,
07:12 my head is on practice today.
07:14 And I know that's not fun for you guys.
07:16 I try to be really open to you guys.
07:18 I'm being honest and open today.
07:20 My head is on getting better in practice today.
07:23 And, yes, I do know that the Big 12 is going to be difficult.
07:25 It's a difficult schedule, for sure.
07:28 11-2 coming off a knockoff game,
07:31 and obviously across the two most difficult games on your schedule so far.
07:36 Is it easier for you guys to kind of drill in on things
07:40 and hammer things home when you've been a really sure player,
07:43 "Hey, we didn't do these things correctly in the games,
07:46 and we're only going to be really facing big game scenarios."
07:49 The rest of the way, so it's time to kind of clock in.
07:52 Just to point it and make it very clear,
07:54 and I understand the context of the question.
07:57 I'm not trying to spin it around, but every game is a big game.
08:01 I mean, Evansville in here a couple nights ago was a big game.
08:04 The next game on your schedule is always the biggest game to me.
08:08 I never say that this game is a big game
08:10 because it's a high major opponent or a league game.
08:12 They're all big. They all matter.
08:15 But I think what you're saying against the highest-ranked opponents
08:19 are in the most difficult atmospheres.
08:22 Are there things that we can learn that we weren't able to do successfully?
08:26 Absolutely, right? Absolutely. We're going to evaluate that.
08:29 We're going to try to use those as learning tools for our team.
08:32 If we have success, guys, if we do anything that's successful,
08:36 we're going to try to use the things we did well,
08:39 and we're going to try to emphasize those things to our team
08:41 and why we should keep doing them.
08:43 If we have success, there's going to be some things we didn't do well.
08:46 We're going to try to get them to believe we need to fix those,
08:49 even though we won.
08:50 If we lose, it's the exact same approach,
08:53 just with a little bit different of a feeling after the game is over.
08:57 So, yeah, we're trying to learn from the games we won.
08:59 Those 11 games we won, we're trying to learn.
09:01 And those two games we lost, we're trying to learn
09:04 and emphasize the things we did well and learn from the things we didn't.
09:07 That approach will be consistent all the time,
09:09 regardless of the time of year, team, or league, or anything like that.
09:13 [Inaudible]
09:30 I guess I was just saying that over the years,
09:32 I've tried to mature a little bit.
09:34 We're always telling our players we want them to grow up
09:37 and have a better perspective and mindset.
09:40 I think as coaches, we've got to listen to our own advice.
09:44 But early -- I'm not saying every team --
09:46 but early in my career, I've been breaking stuff and acting like an idiot.
09:50 And I certainly felt like that.
09:53 And there's times that it's great to show emotion as a coach.
09:58 I just do think that teams and players have to make a decision that the things
10:08 that win -- like there's things that win.
10:12 And as coaches, not just me, we all know.
10:14 We all know what those things are.
10:15 We're all coaching those things.
10:17 But it's powerful when a team decides they're going to embrace those wholeheartedly.
10:23 And I think that's where we're at with this team.
10:26 They know what to do.
10:30 We've got to make sure we're doing it consistently
10:34 and at the highest possible level to the highest standard all the time.
10:38 And I'm not putting myself off the hook as a coach.
10:42 We're going to come in and demand that every single day.
10:44 We're going to emphasize that every day.
10:46 But it gets really powerful when the guys on the team decide that they're going
10:50 to embrace it to the same degree, and we're working through that right now.
10:54 Not in a way that they're resisting it, but it hasn't clicked yet with this group
11:01 that we are going to be about the winning stuff every single second all the time.
11:06 They work hard, but there's a difference between working hard
11:10 and embracing the little details that really win.
11:15 And, again, hopefully Evansville was a light bulb of the forum where, hey,
11:19 when we actually had the right approach and played with some activity
11:22 and energy, tried to get after loose balls, you know, we're alive a little bit
11:27 out there, we can be a good team.
11:29 And when we don't, we're not a very good team, and we're trying to get this group
11:33 to understand you have to be that way all the time.
11:35 You can't turn the light switch on and off.
11:37 Tim Moore, you were in Utah at the start.
11:40 The times when it was elevation, all that stuff.
11:42 Do you think you can do it differently?
11:47 You can ask Mike.
11:48 I can tell you that he's like a mad scientist, you know.
11:53 I mean, he's always doing something to prepare our guys physically.
11:58 One of the great aspects to having him as your strength coach is you don't have
12:04 to get involved.
12:06 You know, with Mike Rayfeld, and I'll never forget,
12:10 Cronin told me this about him, and it was so true.
12:12 With Mike Rayfeld, you can just not worry about strength and conditioning
12:16 as the head coach because you know it's being done at the highest possible
12:19 standard, and that's true.
12:21 So, I'm sure that Mike is doing something to prepare our guys for whatever they
12:26 have to be ready for physical this week.
12:28 I don't get involved in it because that's how good I think he is.
12:30 I don't have to.
12:32 Understand that every practice is supposed to be perfect.
12:36 [inaudible]
12:39 How high the level of competition is.
12:42 What's the number one thing that you're looking for?
12:49 It's hard to say this one thing, but it's just to do the winning stuff.
12:56 Embrace the winning stuff consistently every possession.
13:01 It doesn't mean you're going to win every possession.
13:03 It doesn't mean every possession is going to go your way.
13:05 But we define what those winning things are, and to embrace that
13:12 and try to accomplish that every single possession,
13:15 I think that's going to be the key in league play for us.
13:18 for us.