Sean Miller to Arizona timeline

Wow! What a day!
Here is a rough timeline of the events from today, as I understood and observed them (times are rough estimates, as I was not checking my watch closely):

Early Morning- Mike Bobinski drives to Sean Miller’s house and has a heartfelt meeting with the coach. The two had talked last night, and had been in constant communication about the situation. Miller had gone to bed with doubts in his mind, and woken up still torn. Bobinski described the conversation as emotional, but ultimately left with his coaching situation up in the air.

Noon- Miller calls Bobinski to inform him that he will be leaving for Arizona. Presumably, Miller and his wife Amy discussed the situation all morning, and ultimately decided to pull the trigger.

1:30 p.m.- The alarm goes out to the players to come to Cintas for a meeting, but they are not told what the meeting is for. Word got out quickly, however, and any already knew before they got in the locker room that Miller was leaving.

1:35 p.m.- As players trickle in they all turn down comment with the media, and head straight for the locker room.

1:40 p.m.- Five players—Dante Jackson, Kenny Frease, Jamel McLean, Derrick Brown and Mark Lyons—are here already. Lyons was the last to arrive, and walked into the locker room for a brief moment, before exiting quickly, chased by Kenny Frease. “This is bull----!,” Lyons yelled. Frease tried to get Lyons to come back into the locker room, but Lyons responded, “No man! F--- this.”

1:50 p.m.- Jackson, Frease and the newly arrived Brian Walsh head outside the locker room to meet others at the West Entrance of Cintas.
“We came to play for Miller,” Jackson said. “Anytime you lose a head coach it is going to be a blow.”

“We just have to regroup and go from here,” Frease said. “Coach Miller was a big part of coming to Xavier, but [potentially leaving] is not something that I want to talk about right now.”

1:55 p.m.- The players are called back inside, presumably to avoid us media folk.

2:00 p.m.- The players claim to be here for a 3:30 lift, but it is revealed the coaches will meet with the players after Bobinski breaks the news to them around 2:30.

2:05 p.m.- There are fans gathering outside of the West Entrance, one of whom has a pair of Arizona shorts that is being stomped on. Obviously, the student body is unhappy.

2:10 p.m.- B.J. Raymond shows up, one of the final few to trickle in. He does stop and talk to the media, unlike some of his younger, more shaken teammates.

Raymond: “Last year there were big things about coach getting ready to leave, and he told us that he was not going to stay forever. You have to be happy for coach. We knew that Xavier was not a place that you want to end [your career]. So he went down to Arizona, they offered him about twice as much, and that is good for him. You can’t be mad at him, but I am sad to see him leave… I talked to the younger guys and told them that it did not look too promising because when I was here he never took a visit. I gotta go in there and calm down the younger guys… Basketball is a business. You have to look at it in those terms. You have to perform when you are a player, and you have to perform when you are a coach. And he has performed very well. When you perform well you deserve things; coach deserves this… Even if I was not leaving, you can’t be mad at him… I’m not surprised. I expected it when he took the visit. Something was going down. If he wasn’t leaving this year, I knew that it would probably be next year, simply because he took the visit. But this year’s team is going to be a great team, and they are going to go make a deep run. If it wasn’t this year, it was going to be next year.”

2:15 p.m.- Jordan Crawford had walked in with Raymond, but had a similar reaction to Lyons earlier, and stormed out of Cintas Center without saying a word. This is the second time in two years that Crawford’s coach has left him, and you have to feel for the kid.

2:20 p.m.- Brad Redford is not exactly thinking clearly at the moment, as he forgot the code to the locker room (that he basically sleeps in).

2:25 p.m.- C.J. Anderson just showed up with his son Antoine. He learned about the move from Crawford as Crawford was disgustedly walking back to his dorm room. Anderson said he plans to go talk to Crawford, and try to keep his head on straight, along with the rest of the team.

Anderson: “I thought coach Miller would be here for a while because he signed an extension.… Congratulations to coach Miller and his family. Hopefully he does as well there as he did here… I understand it is a business. He took a lot of things into account. I trust coach Miller, he is a smart guy, and he must have felt like this was the move that he needed to make… I think coach Mack knows the players, and it would be a better transition. The players know him, and he knows the system. It would be a comfortable transition, so I definitely think that Xavier should take a good look at coach Mack.”

2:30 p.m.- Not much is doing here, as the players have come in and the media has been backed far away from the locker room. It would seem from the brief snippets we have gotten so far that the older players always had this moment in the back of their mind, and anticipated it. They knew that this day would come, and the Mack would likely be the guy, so they were not that worried about it. The younger players are more emotional, however. That is likely because they have not heard Miller’s speech about this not being his final destination.

2:31 p.m.- Word is the players are in a meeting now with Mike Bobinski, and are being told what has happened, and what will happen.

2:40 p.m.- The meeting is out, and a select group of players have chosen to speak to the media: Jackson, Jason Love and Kenny Frease. I did not get to Love in time but here are the other two:

Jackson: “It’s tough. I feel terrible for our guys. We are all disappointed and hurt. You hope and pray that he sticks around for as long as you are going to be there. We knew that coach Miller was a hot commodity, and we wish him the best. We are looking forward to continuing our success as a program. Xavier has not been a program that is made by the coach. Mr. Bobinski will initiate the search, and bring in the right guy for our program… Our goal is to make it to the Final Four, and my mindset was working on making myself and our team better to reach that. You hear the rumor and I didn’t pay much attention to it… I knew he wasn’t going to be here forever. I didn’t think he was going to leave this year. If he was going to leave it was going to be last year. I have a lot of respect for him, he recruited me, and he does things the right way… We haven’t spoken to [Miller] yet. We will a little later, and I am looking forward to that… Coach Mack is obviously going to be in the running. He graduated from here. He is ready to be a head coach. I’m going to sit back and trust our athletic director to make the right decision… Xavier is going to be Xavier, and always put a good team on the floor. We are going to play for our program, our fans, and our family. It doesn’t matter who is the coach on the sidelines… A lot of guys are upset right now, and a lot of things are being said out of emotion. They came for coach miller and also to wear ‘Xavier’ across their uniforms… The mood was disappointment in the locker room… We asked questions of Mr. Bobinski, and we will have questions for our staff later… We have to take it in stride, be upbeat and positive. This program is still going to be here, and we are doing pretty damn good.”

Frease: “In my year here, you come to Xavier for Miller. He was a great coach and recruiter. I fell in love with Xavier, and the traditions they have here. It makes it hard to think about leaving… We have big goals for next year. The talent is there, but it just depends. That is the worst part because you don’t know what is going to happen with the players… I have gotten to know coach pretty well, and there has to be something at Arizona. I don’t feel let down… It’s tough because it is a business.”

3:00 p.m.- Lyons had returned from storming out before, and is now ready to leave again before the 4:00 meeting with Miller. He is stopped by Frease again, who asked him to stay and listen to Miller. “What can he possibly say to me?,” asked Lyons. “Why should I listen to him?”

3:15 p.m.- A lot more waiting here, as Miller is expected to address the team at 4:00. Brown, McLean, Lyons, Anderson (C.J. and Antoine), Stephen Duckett and Jackson are all hanging around in the Auxiliary gym, casually shooting. Jackson leaves to make a phone call, muttering, “They are not better than us. They are just more appealing.”

3:25 p.m.- The press conference has been set for 4:30, with Miller and Bobinski to speak

3:30 p.m.- High school junior J.D. Weatherspoon has de-committed from Xavier. Weatherspoon is a very emotional kid, and likely denounced Xavier in a spur of the moment decision. I tend to believe Xavier still has a good chance with him if they were to hire Mack, especially if Mack hires the right assistant coaches. As for other recruits, I would assume that Emanuel Richardson is already picking out a house in Tucson with the way things played out. So he might end up taking 2009 recruit Kevin Parrom, 2010 recruit Jordan Latham and 2011 recruit Nadir Tharpe out to Tucson with the staff.

4:00 p.m.- The Xavier coaching staff, minus Miller, has addressed the Xavier team in the locker room. After the meeting James Whitford and Terrell Holloway shared a hug, with Whitford tearing up at the moment.

4:05 p.m.- Whitford is in a more jovial mood when talking to Raymond, with Chris Mack also in the conversation. Whitford is nowhere to be seen, but Whitford (and later Miller) and director of basketball operations Travis Steele are wearing neutral clothing—odd for men that wear Xavier apparel every day to work. Mack is wearing a Xavier polo shirt, however. Whitford jokes with Raymond that he should come out to Tucson to be an assistant coach, since he has been one already for four years. He says they have one spot open on the bench, leading me to believe that Mack may have already been given the job.

4:15 p.m.- Miller arrives with his son Braden. He has not addressed the team personally yet, as he was not part of the meeting in the locker room earlier.

4:25 p.m.- Mack is stalking around the media room, hanging out in the back and talking with administrators. He is giving me the impression that he may be introduced as the head coach here any moment, and is ready to speak. One of the other writers asked him if he wanted to hop up on the podium and accept the job, to which he just laughed and shook his head.

4:27 p.m.- Frease and Jackson are at it again, speaking outside the press room. Both are reiterating how they are disappointed, but not upset. Frease mentioned how it is going to be tough to lose Whitford, who was the post-player coach.

4:30 p.m.- Miller comes in to the press conference. I will not do any transcribing, since it has already been widely disseminated. I will, however, say that the go-to quote about Xavier not being able to win a national title was overblown. “I would never leave Xavier unless I felt that it was a place where I can win a national championship. I don’t want to say that you can’t win one here. But it is a place that has done it before, and has that quarter of century worth of excellence stamp to it.” Miller was saying that he was attracted by the tradition of a place like Arizona, of which a championship is a part. He was not slighting Xavier, merely pointing out that the place he is going to has been to the mountaintop. In my opinion, the big moment was when Miller choked up when talking about Bobinski, and what he means to him.

4:40 p.m.- Bobinski is on the stand now, and I will not get much into what he said, either. I will say that he did not sound like he had made up his mind on a coach, but that is what you have to say if you are an Athletic Director, of which there are few better than Mike Bobinski.

5:00 p.m.- After the press conference Crawford, McLean and Redford were in the Auxiliary gym shooting around. Bobinski went in to talk to Crawford, who was obviously still shaken. The doors were closed, but Bobinski repeatedly made motions indicating he was talking about the program growing in the future.


Whew! Action packed couple of hours.
My general thoughts are that Xavier is still in a great position moving forward. Sure, the Musketeers might lose some recruits for next season and beyond. But overall, the talent level at Xavier will be extremely high next season, and will continue at that level for the next few years. Crawford, Frease and Jackson would figure to still be on campus next year, and that three some alone should bridge the two year gap that any coach would need to infuse his own recruited talent.
Also, another conference title, and a deep NCAA run next year will keep the recruits coming. I am very confident in saying that Xavier will ultimately hire Mack. Mack has strong ties within the state of Ohio, and on the recruiting scene in general, to where he will be able to fill his staff effectively and his roster will remain loaded.
Still, for many April 6, 2009 will go down as one of the gloomier days on the campus of Xavier University, both literally and figuratively.