Monday's Column

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I appreciate all of your comments on my column yesterday. They speak for themselves across the board. I'll try to expand on my points and address your comments in more depth here.

Given Penn's historical dominance in a league defined for years not by parity, but by only two teams -- the "Killer P's" -- it is hard to accept that the talent pool in the league is more spread out right now. Maybe in the past, Penn could have managed to get by with a team composed primarily of underclassmen. But right now, they lack talented and very experienced upperclassmen, forcing the program into a rebuilding phase that should realistically last 2-3 years.

For various reasons, Fran Dunphy's final two recruiting classes simply have not panned out. Injuries are largely to blame (read: Darren Smith, Andreas Schreiber, Tommy McMahon, et al). You could even go back to Brian Grandieri's recruiting year and label that class as weak -- except Grandieri -- explaining why he had a minimal supporting cast last season. Some of the other players just didn't materialize into very good Ivy League players. You can blame the latter reason on Dunphy and say he was a bad recruiter in his final years. You can blame it on Miller and say that he didn't develop those players to help them reach their full potential. You can blame it on the players themselves. But assessing blame is meaningless and impossible to do with any real accuracy.

So then we turn to Miller's recruits, most of whom in less than two years have shown more promise than most of Dunphy's last recruits in the same amount of time. It is both presumptuous and in my opinion unfair to make the claim that Miller's players are turning on him or don't want to play their best for him. The Quakers have not lacked effort in the past several weeks, and from what I could tell three weeks ago when I sat right behind the Penn bench against St. Joe's, the players understood and responded to his outbursts well. Obviously, none of the players are going to speak out against their coach on the record, so it's impossible to report what they really think and feel. Maybe the fact that no one has vehmently spoken out on the record against him -- even after graduation or quitting the team -- suggests that he is more respected by his players than some readers might think. The case was certainly not the same for Joe Scott a few years back at Princeton.

In any event, the circumstances that have led to this rebuilding period are most unusual and unfortunate, and fans certainly deserve to question the way Miller has handled himself and this team throughout his tenure. Whenever a team is struggling and suffering from a talent gap, it is very difficult to figure out just how much the coach is to blame. And I would tend to think that without any real leaders on a losing team, the coach is likely to take the heat more quickly than he should.

That's why I believe Penn fans need to accept that this process might take some time, and that it is only fair to give Miller time.

That said, Miller has not embraced the Penn basketball culture -- or the Penn community itself -- in the way that he should have when he first got here. It's a problem that continues to plague him -- one that he needs to make a real effort to overcome. It will be almost impossible for him to get over that hump if fans continue to harass him, which is what makes this current situation especially complicated. The only way I see it being remedied is if both sides begin to gain a better understanding of each other.

Some of you have expressed frustration over his lack of ties to Penn, or that he's simply not a Philly Big 5 coach. I share your concerns -- he has not done enough to make up for his lack of a Penn or Philadelphia identity, or he doesn't realize how important these qualities are and historically have been to the program. Many of you just don't get the sense that Miller embraces the full meaning of his role within the university, which is more than simply being the John R. Rockwell head coach of men's basketball. There are many fans, alumni, and faculty out there that feel alienated by Miller and the basketball program. At Penn, the basketball coach is a very important figure by nature. Recapturing their support extends far beyond wins and losses.

Of course, if fans don't give him a chance to earn their support, then he never will. Both sides ought to try.