Previewing Xavier: Sean Miller's Return to Cincinnati
In Providence’s run to the 2018 Big East Tournament title game they came back from 17 points down to knock off top seeded Xavier, 75-72, in overtime. Xavier was 28-4 at the time, had been ranked in the AP top 10 since January, and were winners of 13 of 14 before falling to the Kyron Cartwright-led Friars on that Friday night in MSG.
Despite the loss, Xavier earned a number one seed in the 2018 NCAA Tournament, but came up short in the program’s quest for its first-ever Final Four bid when they were knocked off by Florida State in the second round.
That season marked the end of Chris Mack’s outstanding tenure as head coach. In eight of Mack’s nine years leading Xavier they reached the NCAA Tournament. They made the Sweet 16 twice, the Elite Eight in 2017, and were ranked in the AP top 10 in each of his final three seasons there.
He left Xavier after the season to take over at Louisville, in a move that didn’t work out for any of the parties involved.
Mack’s final season at Xavier also marked the last time the Musketeers reached the NCAA Tournament. That’s unacceptable for a program that failed to make the NCAAs just twice from 2005-2018.
Xavier had two coaches from 2005 until 2018 — Mack and his predecessor, Sean Miller.
Miller helped build Xavier into a powerhouse, first as an assistant under Thad Matta, and then during his five seasons (2004-05 through 2008-09) as the head coach.
Xavier won 26 games in each of Matta’s three years as their head coach, followed by Miller reaching a Regional Final and Regional Semifinal during his final two years in Cincinnati.
Well… his final two years until an unlikely turn of events led him back to Ohio this spring.
Under Travis Steele, who took over for Mack in 2018, Xavier was always competitive, but seemingly fell apart late every year. X won 19 games in each of Steele’s first two seasons, went 13-8 in the Covid-shortened 2021-22 campaign, and won the NIT last year (albeit with Steele having been fired one game into the tournament).
The late-season failings and lack of NCAA Tournament appearances were simply too much for Steele to survive. They lost six-straight games from January to February of 2019, closed 2-6 in 2021, and finished 2-7 down the stretch before falling to Butler in the first round of the Big East Tournament last March.
Now Miller is back at Xavier — a place he likely never would have returned had his career not gone sideways at Arizona.
Arizona has been charged with five Level 1 NCAA violations — charges for which Arizona and Miller are still awaiting punishment. Miller could miss a significant portion of this season due to a suspension from his time overseeing a program that was at the heart of an FBI probe — an investigation that led to assistant coach Book Richardson going to federal prison for accepting bribes, and assistants reportedly paying $40,000 to obtain fraudulent academic records. There were also reports of paying DeAndre Ayton $100,000 to attend Arizona.
Over the coming weeks and months we can expect to hear Miller talking about moving forward, not looking back. Xavier’s leadership will reiterate that they were comfortable hiring him because they knew Sean Miller during a previous life and that he’s learned from his mistakes.
The national media (often made up of former coaches themselves) tends to move on quickly from these stories, while any local writer that beats the drum would have to live with being constantly berated online and turning off the university and coaching staff.
Miller is at Xavier because he’s an outstanding basketball coach. The (oncourt) knock on him has been his inability to reach the Final Four, despite leading some really talented teams in Tucson. Yet, Miller has won 73% of the games he’s coached. He won 57 games over his final two years at Xavier, and 30+ games in five different seasons at Arizona.
In just the past week, Miller landed three four star players in the class of 2023.
No matter how much time he misses this season, it’s likely only a matter of time before Miller has it rolling at Xavier.
Is Xavier good enough to make a push for the top spot in the Big East as early as this season?
The core of last year’s team is largely back, with the most notable exception being Paul Scruggs, the talented scoring guard who was seemingly at Xavier long enough to remember Miller’s first tenure.
Scruggs came to Xavier as a top 40 player in the class of 2017, and had a solid career that didn’t quite live up to that lofty billing. He was their third-leading scorer last year behind a pair of returnees in the versatile Jack Nunge and emerging wing Colby Jones.
Nunge, a 6’11 transfer from Iowa, endeared himself to Xavier fans early with a monstrous 31 point, 15 rebound game in a win over crosstown rival Cincinnati. In a college basketball season projected to be filled with very good big men across the country, few will score inside and out like Nunge. He has a post game, hits the offensive glass hard, and was a 36% shooter from deep who made 35 threes last year. He averaged over 13 points and seven rebounds a game, while playing 26 minutes a night. He also made the game-winner against Texas A&M in the NIT championship.
Nunge is one of five Big East returning players to be named all conference last season.
Jones, now a junior, has been a trendy pick as the league’s breakout player dating back to last fall. He’s been more of a jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none type in his first two years in the Big East. The 2022 NIT MVP averaged 11.6 points, 7.3 rebounds, and 3.2 assists while shooting 48% from the field last year. He really emerged down the stretch, averaging around 14/7 over the final dozen or so games. With improved accuracy from the arc (29% last year), Jones could turn into a 15/7 guy and a top ten player in the league.
How high Xavier climbs next season may come down to a return-to-form from Zach Freemantle, whose numbers dipped from 16 points and nine boards as a sophomore to ten and five after missing the early part of the season due to foot surgery.
The New Jersey native led the league in rebounding as a sophomore — a year in which he was named the Big East’s most improved player. I was high on this group a year ago, placing them in my top three in the league in the preseason, under the assumption Freemantle would continue to trend upward. If he’s more like the player we saw sophomore year, then X will be tough this season.
Xavier has another solid contributor returning in former Belmont transfer Adam Kunkel, a shooter who averaged nearly nine points a game last season. Kunkel’s rep is that of a shooter, but he can make plays with the ball in his hands as well. He scored 20 in last year’s triple overtime classic at the Dunkin Donuts Center.
Miller looks to have added backcourt scoring punch with the addition of UTEP grad transfer Souley Boum, a 6’3 guard who put up 19.8 points per game last year. Boum has scored 1850 points in his career, and shot nearly 37% from deep and 85% at the free throw line last season. He ranked in the 50th percentile in the country in spot up scoring, and was effective as a pick and roll ball handler (91st percentile scoring out of screen and rolls on 135 possessions).
Xavier’s recruiting class is highlighted by a top 75 shooter in 6’5 Kam Craft out of Illinois. Craft and Providence signee Quante Berry played in a closely-contested game against one another last year during the prep season.
Miller was also able to hold on to Desmond Claude, another 6’5 top 100 ranked player out of Connecticut. Claude is a Putnam Science product with great physical ability who could swap between guard spots. He was a big-time stock riser in the summer before his senior year of high school.
Miller was unable to retain top 30 wing Tyrell Ward, who originally committed to Xavier under Travis Steele. Ward is now off to LSU.
The non-conference schedule is highlighted by the Phil Knight Legacy tournament in which Xavier opens with Florida and could potentially match up with Duke in round two. They are hosting both Indiana, as part of the Gavitt Tipoff Games, and West Virginia in the Big East/Big 12 Challenge. They will also visit Cincinnati for their rivalry game on Dec. 10.
The 2022-23 campaign will be such an interesting one in the Big East, with the departure of Hall of Famer Jay Wright from Villanova, the arrival of veteran coaches in Miller and Thad Matta at Butler, and high-upside young leaders in Shaheen Holloway at Seton Hall and Kyle Neptune at Villanova taking over.
The league also feels as open this year as it has been in a while. Xavier could make a push for a top three spot in the league, assuming a potential suspension for Miller doesn’t derail their season.