Miller has said repeatedly that any of his players bounced out of the starting lineup will still have largely the same role and minutes.
But that assumes one’s defense is in order. So when Miller moved freshman guard Kobi Simmons back to a reserve spot in order to make room for Allonzo Trier on Wednesday, he wound up playing Simmons just 19 minutes – apparently in large part because Simmons was one of the guys Stanford was beating off the dribble.
“Kobi’s attitude was fantastic; he told me he wants to win,” Miller said about moving him to the bench. “I don’t really look at his role changing a whole lot. He didn’t look confident down the stretch against the zone so we went with some other guys. And like a lot of our perimeter players, you’ve gotta do a great job defending the ball. Gotta be in front of them, gotta be in a stance. You can’t get beat.”
