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(12-15-2022 08:15 AM)OKIcat Wrote:  

(12-15-2022 07:53 AM)bearcatfan Wrote:  The best part about last night's game was seeing Miller get on some players and the team several times for their lack of defense or being out of position or whatever else they were doing wrong.

He looked pretty angry and even said as much during his halftime interview before heading into the locker room.

Here are some postgame quotes:

Wes Miller's opening statement

“Well, needless to say, offensively there were some really good things tonight when we run and all five are doing their part, the four guys without the ball are running the right way and the guy with the ball is making the simple play. We just keep sharing it. We could be a pretty good team. There were some really good moments sharing the ball tonight. I want more defensively. I thought there were some good stretches. The collective effort and will for the most part was okay. I want more. These guys showed what they're capable of from a focus, effort, and passion standpoint in the second half against Xavier and it's my job to hold them to that standard every second. So, I want a little more there. But there were some really good possessions and some good things defensively. I don’t like how we got out rebounded. I thought there were times the shot would go up and we were just looking at the ball in the air as opposed to boxing out the right way. A lot of it was on the defensive board. Hats off to Miami Ohio, Travis's (Steele) group because they do run some good stuff and they make you guard long into possession with the Princeton offense and they're really good shooting team so long shots, long rebounds, but I still think we can be a really good rebounding team. We've done that at times. That was kind of one of the things that stuck out to me a little bit that I didn't like, but it's good to get a win and for the way we felt in here a couple of days ago, and we got to get back on the practice court tomorrow and we keep trying to get better.”


Announcement of an extension for coach and his thoughts

“Well, first of all, I'm thrilled. I prefer not to sit and talk about me. But I'm thrilled about and like, this is where I want to be. This is home like this is not my home. I love it here. So I'm thrilled and truly appreciative of President Pinto and John Cunningham, like deeply appreciative, and the people here that are supporting our program, like this is home now. And that's just a step in the right direction for me and our staff. So I'm thrilled about it. You know, from a timing standpoint, there's no bad timing for something like that to happen. And I mean, I'm deeply thankful for these kids, the way they're letting us coach and them believing in us and the administration believe in and deeply thankful. It just solidifies more that this is home. I don't want to be anywhere else. So I'm thankful for people making that happen.”

https://gobearcats.com/documents/2022/12..._Miami.pdf

Bolded, the timing of that raise/extension looks pretty good in view of the basketball we've seen since halftime of the Shootout too. I keep wondering if Wes and Roy Williams talk much. Roy seems to really admire Wes and certainly has been a mentor. He's a HOF guy--good to have in your corner as a young high major coach.

Watching last night, I feel as if Wes and the team are progressing toward a pretty impressive offense and an improving defense that remains a work in progress. The first and second half started slowly in terms of scoring but they played through it. We can throw cold water on it saying "it's just Miami" but the Bearcats weren't beating any opponent this way a few short weeks ago.

Finally, is it just me, or was the ESPN+ service a mess again last night? Mine reverted to bad audio again, dropping out for half a second, about every 3 seconds. So annoying I finally just muted it. And I had to reboot at least three times when the video signal crashed. As my wife lamented, we didn't know how good we had it when Channel 19 did these non-conference games. But that's never coming back and I don't mind the + concept if the execution could be improved.

No issues with ESPN+ feed here. Using Chromecast or just watching on my Android phone, never had any issues ever with ESPN+, except it forces me to log in again every few weeks/months if I don't use it consistently on a particular device.