Miller explains plan behind roster construction
MBB: Miller also announces he's promoting Brendan Mullins to Associate Head Coach
For the first time since his introductory news conference in late March, new Murray State Head Coach Ryan Miller spoke publicly about his transition into the leading the Racer program.
Speaking with Dave Winder on the ‘Racer Report’ podcast, which you can listen to here in its entirety, Miller described his plan for putting together a roster for the 2025-26 season.
“It's like putting together a puzzle,” Miller said. “The roster here, before I got here, was filled with older kids that graduated and lost their eligibility. Some kids wanted to pursue other places and other avenues for their basketball career. We love their support. We've had great interactions with all the kids that were current Murray State Racers. Like I told them, they're all family. Once you wear that Murray State Racer jersey, you become part of our family — but changes were made. Guys decided to go elsewhere, guys graduated, and we had to put together a roster that fit our identity and what we're trying to do here. Coaching the last four years with (Creighton) Coach (Greg) McDermott, coaching the offensive basketball, we have a strong identity of what kind of kids we wanted, and we started putting that puzzle together. We wanted to get older and older fast. The first guys that we tried to get were older transfer portal players that were experienced, that had been through the battles, that had been through the wars, and then kind of go from there. As you layer our roster so far, you have a whole bunch of older guys that are experienced, that have played in our system before, with Ben Shtolzberg, Mason Miller, Fred King — they really know what to expect. Then we tiered it behind it with younger guys that could develop into big time roles, so we can keep some continuity as we go forward.”
Shtolzberg, Miller and King all played at Creighton over the last several years when Miller was an assistant coach there.
When it came to filling out his first staff at Murray State, Miller felt it was important to try to retain Assistant Coach Brendan Mullins and Director of Basketball Operations Jack Seltsam off the previous staff.
“I’ve been truly blessed and very lucky to be able to assemble guys that are, number one, very talented,” Miller said. “Coach Mullins, I've known his dad for a long time. I know his brother (Bryan) very well. He was (an assistant) coach at DePaul (last year). We were going against each other (in the Big East). We actually played SIU when I was at Creighton in a very tough game in the Virgin Islands a few years back, so I know the Mullins family going into it. I was looking to retain him as my Defensive Coordinator and Associate (Head) Coach. He knows the league very well too, which is very important. Coaching in the Big East the last four years and coaching in the Big 12 the previous five years, I don't know much about the league, so I'm going through it myself. It's been a little bit of a whirlwind. To be able to keep Coach Mullins and keep Jack, who's kind of been through this a little bit, the process here, has really been helpful.”
After the signing of Mathis Courbon on Tuesday, Miller still has three scholarships left to fill for the 2025-26 season.
Glad he finally spoke to someone. He needs to get with you. Still hate the way Justin Morgan was let go. Truly not a class move.