So what’s Sean Miller up to these days?
According to a report from Pittsburgh that cites unnamed sources, Miller is having intermediaries tell Pitt he’s interested in their head coaching job (unlike two years ago). Meanwhile, ESPN’s Jeff Goodman said in a Q&A that he thought Miller would take the Pitt job if Pitt would take him.
There is also plenty of speculation about whether Pitt AD Heather Lyke would hire Miller, and folks are waiting to see whether Dan Hurley will pick Pitt, UConn or neither.
But the visible evidence so far says Miller is wasting no time hitting the recruiting trail while trying to fill those seven open scholarships … for next season at Arizona.
Arizona coaches Sean Miller and Mark Phelps here in California checking out state playoff action and unsigned 2018 target Devonaire Doutrive with Birmingham taking on Shareef O’Neal and Crossroads pic.twitter.com/k15ULf6MnW
— Matt Moreno (@MattGOAZCATS) March 18, 2018
While Miller hasn’t been publicly available for comment since the Wildcats lost to Buffalo last Thursday, maybe that says something, too.
“His actions are that he’s actively recruiting and trying to to fill a staff,” 24/7 Sports recruiting analyst Josh Gershon said. “He’s on the road recruiting as if he’s going to be Arizona’s coach. He’s s on the phone making calls trying to find the prefect staff for him so if he’s doing all these things this is a coach who is planning to be there.”
While many more names are likely to surface as the spring moves on, among the players Arizona could get involved with or is currently involved with include:
- Jordan Brown, a McDonalds All-American forward from Prolific Prep who is one of the highest-regarded unsigned class of 2018 players. While 24/7 Sports lists Cal as a leader, Philipe Doherty of Prolific Prep said his family is open to all options at this point.
- Devonair Doutrive, a small forward from the high school class of 2018 out of Southern California who played against Shareef O'Neal in the Division II championship.
- Brandon Williams, the former UA commit who says he now loves the Oregon coaching staff.
- James Akinjo, a 6-0 guard from the Bay area who was let out of his Connecticut LOI in the wake of Kevin Ollie’s firing.
- Ryan Taylor, a prolific scoring guard who is leaving Evansville as a grad transfer (though Arch Miller is also interested, among many other top coaches....)
Cal guard Don Coleman says he's transferring.
With three more Pac-12 teams bowing out of the NIT, Utah is the last team standing in the conference. After beating LSU on Monday, Utah will play at Saint Mary's on Wednesday (7 p.m., ESPN2) for the right to play in the NIT semifinals at Madison Square Garden.
The Gaels already eliminated one of the Pac-12's NIT entrants, Washington, while Oklahoma State took care of Stanford.
Chimezie Metu sat in the stands to watch USC, and the Trojans could have used him.
