College Hoops

First-year men’s college basketball coaches: Who’s overachieving, who’s not?

First-year men's college basketball coaches: Who's overachieving, who's not?

Nearly every first-year coach has a learning curve after taking over a new program. A few weeks to get their feet wet, find their way around campus, learn the area.

That wasn’t the case for Sean Miller, who returned to Xavier after spending eight years with the Musketeers as an assistant and head coach in the early 2000s.

Which doesn’t mean everything is the same. The biggest change? Since Miller left in 2009, the Musketeers moved from the Atlantic 10 to the Big East.

“Being in the Big East Conference, how strong the Big East is right now, it makes an already really special place that much greater,” Miller told ESPN this week. “That’s no disrespect to being in the Atlantic 10. But Madison Square Garden, the pageantry, the 20-game season, it ignites the fan base. The profile, being in the Big East, that’s the biggest difference.

“But a lot of the things that made Xavier special are still in place. A university aligned with college basketball. They support it. They love it. With no football, basketball has always been the front porch here. It’s created a love affair between the city of Cincinnati and Xavier basketball. Now with the Big East next to it, it’s amplified it.”

Miller took over a program used to winning. Xavier went to the NCAA tournament in all but two seasons from 2001 to 2018 — but the Musketeers hadn’t gone dancing since Chris Mack left for Louisville after the 2018 tournament.

With four of their top six scorers returning from last season, though, Miller wasn’t planning on a rebuild.

“We had experience returning here. Jack Nunge, Zach Freemantle, Colby Jones, that’s three All-Big East performers. All veteran players,” he said. “For a new coach, that’s certainly a great setup.”

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Souley Boum hits clutch late jumper for Xavier

Souley Boum gets the jumper to fall with less than a minute to play to give Xavier the go-ahead lead vs. Marquette.

When Miller took stock of the roster, he knew he needed one more key player, so he went into the portal for a scoring combo guard and came out with Souley Boum, who once had 16 points against Miller’s Arizona team in 2020-21. Boum was a high-level scorer at UTEP, but it was something else that caught Miller’s eye.

“A player who draws fouls over a four-year college career, they know how to do that. That’s not something they won’t carry with them,” Miller said. “We wanted a guard who could play, who could score. He’s a wonderful guy. He really is. I give him a lot of credit, he joined a group that had already…

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