Miller defends Sullivan, Scott defends himself

Penn coach Glen Miller gave strong support to the recently-fired Harvard coach Frank Sullivan.

"It's disheartening to me because coach Sullivan is first and foremost a terrific person. I happen to think he's a very good coach, and you never want to see that happen to somebody like coach Sullivan so I wish him nothing but the best of luck. I think it's a poor decision, but they made it, and you just wonder if they game him the support that he needed to be successful there. It's just disheartening from my standpoint."

On the other side, it looked more like a 15-minute proposal for Princeton to keep him as coach than a post-game press conference following a blowout loss to Penn to end the season.

"I'm confident in our younger guys because they're workers," Scott said. "The level of their love to play -- we're going to find all that stuff out. But if you combine the love to play with the work ethic plus the experience that they just went through, that's how you make a jump and do get better."

Well, I guess it's good to be positive, but Scott's advertisement was a 5-point plan for re-election.

1. It's tough to win without your best player
Kyle Koncz's injury, and to an extent the one to Edwin Buffmeir, hurt Princeton all year in the Ivy League. As Scott says, it's not as easy to come in and turn around a team when there are few key seniors. I mean he only had like four when he took over for John Thompson III in 2004.

2. The League will be wide open next year
This doesn't mean the Tigers won't still lose to Dartmouth.

3. His young guys are getting a lot of experience
Well, when you play point guard Marcus Schroeder 38.9 minutes per game he's bound to improve.

4. The team has a lot of talent
This is connected to point number 3. Although apparetly talent and the ability to make layups (five uncontested misses against the Quakers this week) are two wholly different things.

5. Scott's team must be improving
I mean, he was barely hoarse from yelling at his players after Tuesday's game, and didn't sound like a chain smoker like he did following the game at the Palestra.

In a not as sugar-coated, politically correct statement, Scott also disclosed his clear vote for Ivy Player of the Year.

"Jaaber's the best player in the League," he said. "I know Zoller has good numbers, but to me, no knock on Mark the guy's a good player too, to me Jaaber's the most valuable player in this league. Your take Jaaber off that team, and I don't know if it's the same team"