Glen Miller speaks

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For anyone who follows Penn basketball and college hoops as a whole, it was hard to miss one face on ESPN over and over again this week: former Quakers coach Glen Miller, now director of basketball operations at UConn. As the Huskies made an incredible 5-games-in-5-days run to the Big East Championship, Miller was right there — on the bench, in the huddle, drawing up plays on the whiteboard, blurrily standing in front of ESPN's camera shot of Kemba Walker...

In just a season and a half, Miller has gone from mid-season Ivy dismissal to Big East champ and belle of the Big Dance. While Miller is busy preparing for the NCAA tourney next weekend, Philly.com's Jonathan Tannenwald was at the Big East tourney and caught up with the man who he used to interview beneath the Palestra bleachers. Check out his transcript here for more, but here's a few snippets:

Do you see yourself at some point, whether in the short- or medium-term, getting back into head coaching?

Yeah. Once you’ve been a head coach, you certainly still think you can do a good job. Hopefully another opportunity comes at some time. But for right now it’s just, when you’re on a team, whether you’re a player or a coach, you’re trying to contribute everything you can to help your program win.

My role is different here, and again I’m just trying to do what I can here and take care of, game by game, helping this program move forward. And winning a big game like today. I think when you win, everybody is rewarded for that, so hopefully down the road I’ll get another opportunity.

Do you still talk to any of your former players from Penn or Brown?

Yeah, you know, here and there. I don’t get to that much. Again, you’re wrapped up in the moment, and they’re busy with their seasons and their careers. So not as much as I might like. But I’m just enjoying this season and what we’re into right now at the University of Connecticut.