{"id":81725,"date":"2025-12-09T14:15:25","date_gmt":"2025-12-09T14:15:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/81725\/"},"modified":"2025-12-09T14:15:25","modified_gmt":"2025-12-09T14:15:25","slug":"texas-longhorns-coach-sean-miller-values-uses-old-rick-pitino-wisdom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/81725\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas Longhorns coach Sean Miller values, uses old Rick Pitino wisdom"},"content":{"rendered":"

Texas basketball<\/a> coach Sean Miller<\/a> still abides by the piece of wisdom that Rick\u00a0Pitino imparted during the 1986 Five-Star Basketball Camp \u2014 at the 13th station, to be exact.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Miller, 18 years old then, attended the camp hosted by college and\u00a0NBA coaches not far from his house in Pittsburgh. Speaking to the media Monday night following the Longhorns\u2019 95-69 win over Southern<\/a>, Miller called upon\u00a0Pitino\u2019s lesson to highlight a fouling problem that UT’s coach says will handicap his team if left unfixed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cFouling negates hustle,\u201d Miller, now 57, said, quoting Pitino. \u201cIt\u2019s not a good thing. Fouling negates effort, negates hustle. And sometimes, when you watch us play through the first 10 games, we\u2019re flying around, and we have guys giving great effort, but it only takes one player to reach in, to be undisciplined, to grab a jersey, and that foul just completely takes the air out of the building.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Longhorns (7-3) sent Southern (4-5) to the free-throw line 25 times. The Jaguars showed their pluck in a double-overtime loss Nov. 18 to Washington, but are nonetheless 1-5 against Division I opposition this season. Texas\u2019 size and superior athleticism meant Southern would have a difficult time keeping up, no matter how many free throws the Jaguars shot.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But the success of Miller\u2019s first season in charge of the Longhorns won\u2019t be defined by whether his team can pulverize overmatched opposition like Southern. More talented tests lie ahead. And Miller knows, in those games, free throws will matter.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a major problem,\u201d Miller said. \u201cWe got to defend and pressure the ball better, and we just have to get good across the board schematically. Have to take a look at everything we\u2019re doing. In addition to just working at it, we might have to make some changes, which includes playing players who might play better defense.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Texas came into Monday committing 19.6 fouls per game, more than 301 of 365 Division I programs. That number will jump after the Longhorns fouled Southern 23 times.<\/p>\n

Both of UT\u2019s primary big men, Matas Vokietaitis<\/a> and Lassina Traore<\/a>, finished with four fouls. Vokietaitis helped offset his contributions to that total by sinking all 14 of his free throws. Miller spent the majority of his\u00a0postgame press conference harping on the fouling issue, but the Longhorns shoot more free throws than they concede.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Vokietaitis spearheads that effort. The 7-foot Lithuanian draws more fouls per 40 minutes than anyone in the country.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen they foul me, I\u2019m happy,\u201d Vokietaitis said after the game. \u201cI can help the team to win by making free throws.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Still, Miller is demanding improvement.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He pointed toward last season\u2019s Xavier team to illustrate that growth is possible. The Musketeers\u2019 nonconference opponents attempted 18.5 free throws per game. In Big East play and the postseason, Xavier \u2014 now coached by Pitino\u2019s son, Richard \u2014 gave up 15.9 free throws per game.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a really big deal,\u201d Miller said. \u201cUndisciplined players are coached by an undisciplined coach. I really mean that. I have to be able to, on an everyday basis, explain, teach, drill and demand. Create a standard of what is a bad foul, and it\u2019s up to me to fix it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Texas basketball coach Sean Miller still abides by the piece of wisdom that Rick\u00a0Pitino imparted during the 1986…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":81726,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2692,19752,39632,19753,27,29,537,19751,28],"class_list":["post-81725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-college-basketball","tag-men-s-college-basketball","tag-rick-pitino","tag-sean-miller","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-longhorns","tag-texas-longhorns-men-s-basketball","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81725"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81725\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}