SI Columnist: Miles ‘The Hire’ of the 2012 Season
ESPN: Miles No. 4 among 10 Best Coaching Hires
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By Randy York
In the avalanche of college football spring
practices, the NFL draft and Nebraska baseball, perhaps you’ve lost
track of college basketball, but the national media hasn’t. First-year
Nebraska head basketball coach Tim Miles,
in fact, is getting rave reviews from the nation’s top two sports media
companies, and that has to help the Huskers’ hunt for Big Red October
and the talent required to compete in the Big Ten Conference and justify
the off-season speculation.
When I linked to Sports Illustrated’s website Monday
and saw Miles’ smiling face looking right back at me with a Nebraska
nameplate in front of him and a ceramic basketball imported from China
behind him, I sensed Nebraska getting some genuine respect, especially
when the headline hovering over Miles says “Movers and Shakers” and the
caption below him says: “The Nebraska Cornhuskers made a big offseason
splash in hiring former Colorado State Coach Tim Miles.” SI Columnist Andy Glockner didn’t stop there either. “Nebraska
isn’t a basketball power, and despite new facilities, it has a long way
to go to establish credibility in the very deep Big Ten,” Glockner
wrote. “As such, the Huskers may have made the hire of the season in
landing former Colorado State coach Tim Miles, a noted turnaround
specialist known for tweeting at halftime of his team’s games.”
ESPN’s Myron Medcalf was equally effusive in his Top Ten Best Coaching Hires in the College Basketball Nation Blog,
published on May 3. Medcalf ranked Miles as the No. 4 hire of 2012,
ahead of such notables as Danny Manning, Larry Eustachy and Larry Brown.
“Miles needs his own energy drink. He’s full of vigor. And
he’s going to need it to make Nebraska relevant in Big Ten basketball,”
Medcalf wrote before adding: “Miles’ mojo made him an attractive
candidate for multiple jobs after he led Colorado State to a 20-win
season last season and North Dakota State to the NCAA tournament before
that. The Rams won seven games in his first season and NDSU had to
transition to Division I. The Cornhuskers have a new practice facility
and a new arena (under construction) that will become the
team’s home in 2013. Drawing kids to Lincoln won’t be easy. But the
facilities and Miles’ personality will definitely help.”
If you don’t think Miles is attracting
attention throughout the country, you should have joined my Tuesday
afternoon telephone conversation with Darin Boysen, the president of the Nebraska Coaches Association. Having already secured Bobby Knight as a headline speaker for his organization’s July coaching clinics, Boysen was talking to Alabama softball coach Pat Murphy,
who also will speak at the NCA’s summer clinics. Murphy, whose ‘Bama
team is ranked third nationally this week, told Boysen that he watched
Miles’ entire press conference on Huskers.com last month. “One of Pat’s
hobbies is watching first press conferences for new Division I coaches,”
Boysen said, explaining how Murphy put Miles at the top of his list
this year, based on one intuitively sound reason. “What struck Pat most
was how excited Tim was to be coaching at Nebraska,” Boysen said. “He
told me how impressed he was with Coach Miles’ overall demeanor and how
he genuinely enjoyed listening to him describe what he wants to get
done. Pat called him a perfect fit because he wasn’t looking at Nebraska
as just a pit stop. He could tell he wants to be here forever.”
Send a comment to ryork@huskers.com
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