Miller expects to round out roster with international players
MBB: Murray State still has three scholarships to fill for the 2025-26 season
Summer workouts have begun for Ryan Miller’s first roster as Murray State’s new head coach — or at least for most of the roster.
With the (fingers crossed) expected settlement of the House vs. NCAA case coming soon, the number of men’s basketball scholarships will increase from 13 to 15 starting this upcoming season. As of now, there are 12 players that have publicly signed or committed to play with the Racers next year. When it comes to filling the final three scholarships, Miller says he’ll be looking outside the United States.
“They're going be three international guys,” Miller said during a taping of the Racer Report Live podcast earlier this week. “I wanted to have a mix (of players and experience) when I was putting this roster together. We added some young guys overseas that are kind of older. Overseas, they start playing club basketball at 15, and they're playing against 30-year-old guys already, so they've kind of already adjusted to the fact that they may or may not play, or they might play a smaller role. It's kind of in their culture. In the United States, a lot of the young guys are the star of their high school team playing 40 minutes a game. Having them thrust into a major Division I role where you might not play, or may have a smaller role than you had in your high school, it's very challenging for them mentally to accept that. With international players, they've already been through that. We try to identify those guys that can kind of handle being a young player in a collegiate Division I basketball structure, be able to grow through the process, that are also very talented, but also understand that there's a process to it.”
One of the 12 players Miller is bringing to Murray is Mathis Courbon from Lyon, France. Courbon is one of those older freshman Miller referenced, as he turned 20 back in January. When these international players come in as freshman, and they’re two years older than most ‘normal’ freshmen, it provides instant maturity to the overall roster.
In the past, when there were just 13 scholarship players on the team, it was hard to keep everybody happy with their roles. Now with 15, it might even be harder, but Miller is banking on guys being willing to play the long game, rather than being unhappy and wanting to leave if they don’t get to play a lot right away.
“We try to identify guys that can understand the process,” Miller said. “We want competitors. We want guys that want to play every second of every play of every game. We do want that, but we also want guys that are very, very talented, that might not be ready to compete at the Missouri Valley Conference level for championships. That's our goal — to compete for championships. (We want guys) that understand their process, (that) we think are going to be very, very good one day, that we can develop, and they see a light in the tunnel. If you look how we staggered our roster, I think we have six seniors, and then we went underneath it with some young guys. What we plan on doing is let these seniors, these older guys, really help develop our younger guys. When these guys leave after a year, we’ve created a culture, and we created, in this day and age of Division I basketball, culture and some stability in our roster.”
After the seismic shift in college basketball in recent years, coaching staffs are looking for any creative edge they can get in recruiting to stay ahead of the competition. One of those edges has been finding talent outside of the United States. Miller started recruiting international players nearly 20 years ago, and he’s hoping to take advantage of his experience in that area to help the Racers compete for championships in the Missouri Valley Conference.
“I played a short stint, I wouldn't even call it a pro (playing) career, but I had a short stint overseas in Australia,” Miller said. “When I got the (assistant coaching) job at New Mexico with (Head Coach Steve) Alfred in 2008, 2009, I identified some really good Australian players. I started in Australia because that's where I played. I recruited a kid named Hugh Greenwood, who was an awesome player for us at New Mexico. Then another kid named Cam Bairstow, who ended up being drafted by the (Chicago) Bulls, was one of the best players in the Mountain West Conference. It kind of started there, where I started really getting overseas. Also, the culture is a little bit different. Like I said earlier, in this day and age, everybody wants to play right now, which is very difficult, because everyone's getting old and staying old. If you want to compete for championships, you really have to have those experienced guys. These young kids quite haven't figured out how to win yet. I guess that process dates me a little bit from when I played in Australia, then I started recruiting Australia, then it just kind of morphed from there.”
Miller has frequently gone to Europe over the years to recruit, and that won’t change now that he’s at Murray State.
“I’m going to the European Championships,” Miller said. “This summer, I'll be at the U19 World Championships in Switzerland. It’ll be the best U19 players in the world. I'll be at the U18 European Championships in Belgrade, Serbia. We really value the international game. I think if you look at how we play, and the style of play, I think it's conducive to what the European model is, and some of what the NBA model is, where we're playing a lot of flow basketball, where we’re passing it, we're moving and cutting and playing with space and pace, all these little buzz words — but we're really trying to do that.”
Jeff, thanks for the explanation about roster status and Coach Miller’s philosophy. It makes a great deal of sense to me now that it’s been explained.