Sean Miller is very much a man of the moment.
Miller’s Xavier Musketeers officially punched their ticket to the NCAA Tournament’s Round of 64 with a 86-80 victory over Texas in the First Four on Wednesday. Led by 22 points from senior guard Marcus Foster and 15 points from senior forward Zach Freemantle, Xavier rallied from a 13-point deficit to steal the win from the Longhorns.
After the game, the Xavier head coach Miller was interviewed by Jon Rothstein and gave a lot of credit to his team for their resilience and their winning mentality, calling it “one of the best [games] I’ve ever been a part of.”
Rothstein closed out the interview by asking Miller for his thoughts on his team’s impending matchup against Illinois in the Round of 64.
“I could care less,” replied Miller.
“I don’t even care,” he added. “I’m just glad we won.”
The 56-year-old Miller is now in his second stint as the head coach of Xavier, having returned to the program in 2022. This season, the Musketeers were 21-11 (including 13-7 in conference play) and closed out the regular season on a seven-game win streak to cement themselves as a bubble team. While they went on to lose in the first round of the Big East Tournament and were a miserable 1-9 in Quad 1 games this season, Xavier took care of business against Texas to book a date with No. 6 seed Illinois in the Midwest Region.
Between his two stints with Xavier and his time with Arizona from 2009-21, Miller has already been to 12 previous NCAA Tournaments. That includes four Sweet Sixteen berths and four Elite Eight berths (although with some early exits and some unfortunate meme moments mixed in there as well). But when it comes to this season with the Musketeers, Miller is clearly just trying to enjoy the ride.
