Photo via Miami (Ohio) athletics
PHILADELPHIA — Tennessee basketball ended Miami (Ohio)’s historic season Friday evening, knocking off the RedHawks’ 78-56. Miami came out hot offensively but Tennessee locked them down from there, coasting to the victory.
Following the game, Miami head coach Travis Steele discussed his team’s legacy, Ja’Kobi Gillespie’s big performance and much more. Here’s everything Steele said.
More From RTI: Why Nate Ament Did Not Play Down The Stretch In Tennessee’s Win Over Miami
Opening statement
“Congratulations, to Tennessee. They were very, very physical with us with our offense. They were super, super physical on drives and cuts and just couldn’t get loose. I know we scored a little bit there at the very beginning of the game, but, man, it was a physical game. On the other end, Gillespie was unbelievable. We got deep threes, NBA-range threes, and he’s got that type of range and make five, I think, in the first half, but he’s hard because you have to keep him out of the point. They send him off a lot of off screens and Coach Barnes puts him in a really good position to be successful. 29 points and nine assists, he dominated the game.
Congrats to them, but that doesn’t take anything away from our team. Our team has had a heck of a journey. The quality of human beings that we have in our locker room, man, we’re everything that’s right about college athletics in my opinion. These two are a big part of that, they spearhead it, but I couldn’t be more proud of our group.”
On building a resume
“I would say a little bit like what Pete mentioned, I think a lot of it is analytically driven. I think there feeds to be adjustments made to a lot of these, whatever you want to say, the analytical data or whatever, the Kenpom roadways or the predictive numbers, the net specific needs to be adjusted, right? I think you can always make things better. I don’t know when’s the last time they made an adjustment to it or if they have. Fans want to see those games. Our fans do, their fans do. They want to see brands. It went viral.
I think Jonathan Holmes e-mails our staff. He’s in charge of scheduling, most scheduling is done over the phone. It’s frustrating. We didn’t finish our schedule until October, mid-October. We didn’t play until two weeks later, which is ridiculous. Especially in today’s college landscape, you want to stay away from quad two and quad three games. It does nothing for you. Nothing. It’s almost like a lose/lose situation if you’re them, so I get it.
I think we may have moved up to a quad two, which hopefully, will help us, but if you’re in that quad three range, man, good look, you have no choice.”
On Rick Barnes saying Miami (Ohio) could win games in the SEC
“We didn’t get a chance to play in the SEC. Give Tennessee credit.”
On how much this season has meant to him
“I’m obviously very proud of our guys. I’m happy they got to experience this. The rebuild, they saw it from the ground young. One senior, Eli, he was a walk on for us to all of a sudden we went 31-0 in the regular season this year. Proud that they were able to experience all that, but I think the thing that gets lost a lot of times is everybody sees the result but the journey, the day-to-day is even better. I couldn’t be more proud of the guys that we have in our locker room, the way that we do things. It’s not the result but it’s the way we do things. How we do it I think is what makes me even more proud.”
On finding a way to sustain the success from this season
“You’re hopeful that your culture, the development of each individual player winning, getting a great education will help us keep, retain our players. Not that we’re going to bat a thousand for baseball terminology, but we did pretty well last year. We kept six of our top nine guys from last year’s team. We won 25 games last year, record in team history. Your retention allows you to keep your culture so you’re not constantly starting a new culture every single year. We tried to build something that was sustainable. Wile everybody else was zigging, we just zagged. Everyone was recruiting from portal only, get old stay old. We’re not afraid to have high school guys. We’re confident we can develop our young men into really good basketball players. Retention is at a premium in order to create sustained success.”
On the crowd support Miami has had in the tournament
“I think it shows that it can be done anywhere. Just being honest. From where — and listen, Miami has a very, very proud tradition. All-time winning-est program in MAC history. Ron Harper, Wally Szczerbiak, Wayne Embry, Ira Newble. All those guys who came back for games this year which we’re appreciative of. But there’d been that gap for about 20 years or so where we didn’t have the success that we were used to and we’re back now and it just shows that it can be done anywhere. You just got to invest in the administration from coachers to players, all have to pull in the same direction, have the same vision, which I think is very, very important.
It does make me feel proud where we were, but we’re not done yet, though. We’re not where we were, but we’re not where we want to be yet, either. My goal is to get this thing to the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament. Fell short of that goal this year, but we’ll be back. I’m very, very, very confident of that.”
On what will most stand out about Pete Suder
“Probably can’t say enough good things about Pete. Ultimate winner. He has zero agenda. Zero. He doesn’t care about himself. He doesn’t care whether he scores or not. He’ll have a game where he scores 30, and the next game he has 6, and he doesn’t care, Which is unbelievable.
In today’s landscape, a lot of these dudes are just collecting hollow stats out there to get more money. He only plays to win. He leaves it all out there every day, that’s in practice, that’s in the spring, playing three-on-three, one-on-one, five-on-five. He’s the ultimate winner, man.
Leadership, just everything you want in a young man that guy is. He’s a great basketball player, skilled and all that but his intangibles are ridiculous. Best I have ever been around.”
On the legacy of this team
“I would say connected, unselfish. Those guys mentioned it as well. They truly play for one another. They care about each other. Deep relationships. Not surfacey. Just paying to, I’m going to buy this guy and buy this guy from the portal, and put the most talent out there on the floor. That’s not what we’re going to do. I think they’ve only strengthened our culture just with that connectivity and it just shows how successful you can be when you have it.”