'I Love Him to Death' - #Love #Death

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. --- Wes Miller is one of the hottest coaches in college basketball. In nine full seasons at the helm of the UNC Greensboro basketball program, the former Tar Heel guard has led the Spartans to two NCAA tournaments. Miller and UNCG punched their most recent ticket to the dance on Monday night with a 69-61 win over Mercer.

Miller is 182-134 (.576) overall at UNCG and a 109–66 (.623) mark in conference play. The Spartans have won 25 or more games in each of the last four seasons. UNC Greensboro has won the SoCon regular season three times over the last five season.

Miller played three seasons at North Carolina under head coach Roy Williams. He always had aspirations to coach and wasted little time in beginning his college coaching career. After graduating from UNC, Miller played one season of international ball for the London Capitals before landing assistant coaching jobs with Elon, then High Point, and then UNC Greensboro.

He was named interim coach for the Spartans during the 2011-12 season. He was officially named the head coach of UNC Greensboro on March 6, 2012.

Last week, Coach Williams was asked about Miller, who has become one of the more successful limbs of his coaching tree.

“Well, I think he's been fantastic," Williams said. "...I love him to death. He's got some things that I haven't said about other people. One, he got more out of his potential, came closer to reaching his potential than any player I've ever coached. You know, he wasn't a great ball handler, he didn't have great passing ability, but he could shoot the ball and he's tough as nails. That's where he made his living. And he played close to his potential’s maximum as anybody I've ever seen. And in my lifetime as a coach, he did a better job of that than anybody."

Roy Williams and Wes Miller in 2015. (Photo: Grant Halverson / Contributor, Getty)

When Miller looked to transfer to UNC from James Madison, he made it clear to Coach Williams that he wanted to coach basketball.

"Now the first conversation we ever had, I'm trying to see if he's interested in transferring here," Willaims explained. "And I said, ‘What do you want to be doing 10 or 15 years from now.’ And he said, ‘I want to be a coach.’ And I said, ‘Well, you should come here, then.’ And I was thinking that, if that's what he wanted to do, I would try to be sharing things with him his entire time here and his entire time afterwards and I thought it would be a good situation for him."

Miller transferred to UNC after his 2002-03 season at James Madison. He sat out the 2003-04 season (Williams's first at UNC) and then played the next three in Chapel Hill.

"And it worked out great for us," Williams added. "He was part of some really, really good teams. One year about halfway through the season, I changed the starting lineup put him in to get somebody to make more jump shots, and our team got a heck of a lot better."

Miller's best season was in 2005-06. He played in 31 games and made 16 starts. Miller averaged 7.2 points and 1.9 assists per game while playing 22.6 minutes per contest. He shot 43.8 percent from the field and 44.1 percent from three.

"When I'm talking to my team about toughness, I talk about the three best charges I've ever had guys take and one of them was West Miller at Arizona," Williams said. "And so he's got the toughness. He had the toughness to make shots in games. He's a very bright young man. He's very organized... he thinks the game very well. He's just done a great, great job. He's already a big-time coach, but he's going to be a big-time coach at a much bigger program one of these days.”

#Love #Death