Anyone not happy with hire?

[muskieman]

even if the NCAA would give him a year history also shows they would let the last year Sean was not working would be considered time served.

[Kevin Reilly]

You have to wonder what makes people happy? Hiring the best coach in Xavier history doesn't do it for some people. Hard to believe. Miller didn't throw anybody (assistant's ) under a bus. Book was a shady guy who was well connected to the AAU circuit. If you are going to complain about Miller how about Coach K? Zion 's family got 400,000 K for going to Duke. Did Coach K get blamed? He may not have even been aware of it. Their are shoe sponsors , NBA agents. and wealthy alumni who are working on their own . I don't know everything that happened at Arizona but I bet a lot of it was behind closed doors. Recruiting is a down and dirty business. If Miller gets suspended a couple game we have to deal with it. The guy is a proven good coach and he Loves XAVIER. Anyone who is not happy doesn't understand the NCAA basketball landscape .Xavier hit a home run. Go Miller

[JKC74]

Correct Kevin Reilly. Book Richardson had a reputation and for a long time was connected to some shady AAU programs here in the Metro NYC Area. He was in charge of steering players and money every which way but loose. We lost Miller to begin with when the geezer who coached Arizona ran off with some woman young enough to be his granddaughter!!! I'm glad he will be back in the fold because he loves XU just like we do.

[thecoach]

2003 you're definitely not an outlier in your judgement of the hire. I know for certain not all were completely on board with it, but often folks never are on the same page. I don't think anyone is ever closed to giving second chances, but there will be a price to pay going forward for it. He's going to get a lot of harassment on the road, and it won't likely end in a short period of time. I'm more surprised they didn't give Steele another year if this was the direction they were heading, and wait for the investigation to be handed down. The infractions are more involved than steering money to recruits and families, but also falsifying academic records to get kids into school, and stay eligible which is pretty bad. If you haven't seen "the Scheme" the Hbo documentary from a year ago just watch the last half hour. They have him at his press conference denying everything and even knowing the parties involved, and then they play the phone taps which they are joking around like best friends hurling crap around like they've known each other for years. Same for Wade. The Ncaa is on the clock on this one for sure as there are a lot more details out there on this one than normal given the Federal trial. It will be interesting for all the parties involved at particularly Lsu and Az and their former staffs as to what comes of it. Only time will tell. You roll the dice.

[WCWIII]

I am very happy with the hire. Sean was the best high profile coach with an already established mutual love for the program. He addresses my biggest concern with program continuity. We'd otherwise be starting and could easily be in a situation where we'd take a clear step backwards in the Big East.

But your question is about removing a coaching candidate for being guilty on failure to monitor his program and possibly (but no federal findings) participating in paying a recruit. No cheating should be allowed nor tolerated, but there is a difference between rule breaking vs doing something exploitive/evil. It's a judgement call on whether Sean's violations rise above or below this threshold. A suspension from a small number of games up to possibly a year is looming.

The NCAA is effectively a business and isn't squeaky clean itself. If you remove from your consideration all coaches/programs (whether investigated or caught) with similar or worse taken actions, I suspect you'd remove a large fraction of NCAA basketball in total (especially power 6) and would have to decide for yourself if you could support anything NCAA-related at all. I'm not saying it's right and it's a judgement call, but your question leads to one that is much broader "Anyone not happy with NCAA in totality?".

[kyzrex]

You have to wonder what makes people happy?…………Anyone who is not happy doesn't understand the NCAA basketball landscape.

I think I understand the NCAA basketball landscape quite well. I am quite aware that rules are broken on a regular basis and that a win at all costs mentality is common. Understanding it and being aware of its spread throughout the country doesn’t mean that it makes me happy.

I would be completely happy and thrilled if Miller didn’t come with the baggage. I accept that the baggage is there, but I’m not happy about IT. Could X have found a top quality coach that didn’t have that baggage? A coach as good as Miller? Possibly they could have, maybe the couldn’t. Miller was not a known quantity when he was first in the position. We don’t know what great assistant coach or lower level coach will become a head coach at a high level school and become a star. We can never know what the future will bring. We don’t know who will be the next Miller. It’s not that I’m completely unhappy about Miller being the coach. But I do question how it’s all going to work out and how it makes Xavier look.

[muskieman]

2003 you're definitely not an outlier in your judgement of the hire. I know for certain not all were completely on board with it, but often folks never are on the same page. I don't think anyone is ever closed to giving second chances, but there will be a price to pay going forward for it. He's going to get a lot of harassment on the road, and it won't likely end in a short period of time. I'm more surprised they didn't give Steele another year if this was the direction they were heading, and wait for the investigation to be handed down. The infractions are more involved than steering money to recruits and families, but also falsifying academic records to get kids into school, and stay eligible which is pretty bad. If you haven't seen "the Scheme" the Hbo documentary from a year ago just watch the last half hour. They have him at his press conference denying everything and even knowing the parties involved, and then they play the phone taps which they are joking around like best friends hurling crap around like they've known each other for years. Same for Wade. The Ncaa is on the clock on this one for sure as there are a lot more details out there on this one than normal given the Federal trial. It will be interesting for all the parties involved at particularly Lsu and Az and their former staffs as to what comes of it. Only time will tell. You roll the dice.

After Books's guilty plea and sentence were concluded, Book had a chance to burns down Miller and Arizona, but a contrite Book said Miller didn’t know anything about anything. The director of HBO’s "The Scheme" confirmed that Dawkins says that Mark Schlabach's report of a wiretap phone call of Miller and Dawkins's conversation offering to pay Ayton $100k NEVER happened! Assuming that the coach knows every detail is preposterous. He may be responsible but assistants and donors can be told to be on the up and up and still seek their own way to advance their ambitions. CEOs cannot have their fingers in everything and know every little detail. Players might come to an assistant complaining or seeking help with a certain class and the assistant wanting to be the player's friend might do something the coach never knows happens unless it was made public. The head coach suffers from the actions of other and that is okay because he gets paid to oversee

[xaviermuskie2003]

2003 you're definitely not an outlier in your judgement of the hire. I know for certain not all were completely on board with it, but often folks never are on the same page. I don't think anyone is ever closed to giving second chances, but there will be a price to pay going forward for it. He's going to get a lot of harassment on the road, and it won't likely end in a short period of time. I'm more surprised they didn't give Steele another year if this was the direction they were heading, and wait for the investigation to be handed down. The infractions are more involved than steering money to recruits and families, but also falsifying academic records to get kids into school, and stay eligible which is pretty bad. If you haven't seen "the Scheme" the Hbo documentary from a year ago just watch the last half hour. They have him at his press conference denying everything and even knowing the parties involved, and then they play the phone taps which they are joking around like best friends hurling crap around like they've known each other for years. Same for Wade. The Ncaa is on the clock on this one for sure as there are a lot more details out there on this one than normal given the Federal trial. It will be interesting for all the parties involved at particularly Lsu and Az and their former staffs as to what comes of it. Only time will tell. You roll the dice.

Great post. The falsifying of academic records at Arizona has been overlooked in all this. I'm sure we can talk ourselves around those.

I guess we should all keep our head in the sand about that and also pretend Sean Miller took a hands off approach and let Book handle the recruitment of the #1 player in the country to Arizona.

Oh well. No more will Wade Wade, Bill Self, and Bruce Pearl jokes for us.

[bluegrass]

2003 you're definitely not an outlier in your judgement of the hire. I know for certain not all were completely on board with it, but often folks never are on the same page. I don't think anyone is ever closed to giving second chances, but there will be a price to pay going forward for it. He's going to get a lot of harassment on the road, and it won't likely end in a short period of time. I'm more surprised they didn't give Steele another year if this was the direction they were heading, and wait for the investigation to be handed down. The infractions are more involved than steering money to recruits and families, but also falsifying academic records to get kids into school, and stay eligible which is pretty bad. If you haven't seen "the Scheme" the Hbo documentary from a year ago just watch the last half hour. They have him at his press conference denying everything and even knowing the parties involved, and then they play the phone taps which they are joking around like best friends hurling crap around like they've known each other for years. Same for Wade. The Ncaa is on the clock on this one for sure as there are a lot more details out there on this one than normal given the Federal trial. It will be interesting for all the parties involved at particularly Lsu and Az and their former staffs as to what comes of it. Only time will tell. You roll the dice.

Great post. The falsifying of academic records at Arizona has been overlooked in all this. I'm sure we can talk ourselves around those.

I guess we should all keep our head in the sand about that and also pretend Sean Miller took a hands off approach and let Book handle the recruitment of the #1 player in the country to Arizona.

Oh well. No more will Wade Wade, Bill Self, and Bruce Pearl jokes for us.

2003 I understand where you are coming from . I'm a little surprised X is taking a coach with a questionable past. They would not do this if the coach were someone with no Xavier connection.After all he was one of us so he can't be all bad . I like the hire but we certainly have lost our innocence now.It all comes down to winning and the last 4 years have made us want to get back to that. Maybe we are compromising our principles a little. I think most programs have a little dirt under their fingernails.Sumner was on the list of players who received money too.

[thecoach]

2003, I bring the academic stuff up as it seems to have been cast aside in the discussion about suspension and severity of the violations. When you have all of this stuff at once, I'm curious as to how folks come down on how long you can sit out and be punished. The radio guys seem to focus in on playing players only which is only part of it. Just because a "show cause" hasn't come out, and I don't know that it's completely off the table? That said, my main issue with Miller in making things right is I do not believe he has ever come out and addressed his comments publicly about this versus what played out. If you haven't watched the documentary, watch the last half hour. His press conference denied ever knowing, meeting, talking etc. to Dawkins in the strictest sense. They then play one of numerous calls between them with more F bombs than I could count from my memory. Clearly they were close regardless of Book or not. He really needs to address that if he maintains his innocence. Doesn't add up. Pete Rose like situation. Should come out with the truth first, as there was/is way to much that didn't add up.