GREENSBORO, N.C. — If Sean Miller wanted to be Pitt’s basketball coach or if the university’s administrators or boosters wanted it to happen (and some from that group did), he said Saturday he is glad his career veered in other directions.

Miller’s Xavier team will meet Pitt on Sunday in an NCAA Tournament second-round game at Greensboro Coliseum with one of the biggest prizes in college basketball at stake. The winner goes to the Sweet 16. Only the Elite 8, Final Four and national championship game offer more incentive.

— Jerry DiPaola (@JDiPaola_Trib) March 18, 2023

Miller’s strong ties to Pitt and Western Pennsylvania brought his name to the surface whenever the school needed to hire a coach, but when he was asked Saturday if he was close to returning to Pitt as head coach, he said, “Not really. It never worked out.”

Which was fine with him, he said.

“For me, that’s all the better because, in some ways, I want my memories of Pitt to be when I was there as a student, as a player. It’s simpler that way.”

He called his time at Pitt “some of the greatest years of my life.”

When Miller appeared courtside during Pitt’s game Friday after Xavier rallied to defeat Kennesaw State, he shared an embrace with Curtis Aiken, who does color analysis of games on the 93.7 FM and directly preceded him as a Pitt point guard.

“Curtis Aiken treated me like I was their younger brother,” said Miller, who played at Pitt from 1987-1992 and was an assistant there for the 1995-1996 season. “Learned a lot, as much off the court as on the court. It’s a big reason I wanted to go into coaching.”

Miller was out of coaching last season after he was fired at Arizona, and he recalls watching the NCAA Tournament, as he described it, “without a team.”

“It captivated me, just watching different teams and storylines,” he said. “You fall in love with those couple weeks. Hopefully, we can stick around.”

Miller has led teams to 12 NCAA Tournaments, including in 2009 when he was ousted by Pitt and Jamie Dixon in the Sweet 16. Xavier got some revenge the next season, beating Pitt in the NCAA second round, but by that time, Miller was at Arizona, where he won 30 games in his second season.

Losing in March is not easy for him to accept, he said.

“I’ve gotten better at it. I don’t want to say I’ve gotten used to it,” he said. “Look, there’s only one team that’s going to end (its) season with a win. When you advance, it’s the greatest feeling in the world. When you lose, someone comes in and tells you the time your plane is going to leave. You almost get kicked out of the tournament. It ends quickly. I learned that in college. Unfortunately, in a heartbreaking way.”

Pitt coach Jeff Capel calls Miller “a Pitt man,” and Miller admits to having “a soft spot” for Pitt, but with clear limits.

“As much as I love Pittsburgh, my wife and I both attended Pitt, some of the people I most love in life live in that city,” he said, “but (Sunday), it’s about winning the game and getting to the Sweet 16.”

Xavier (26-9) almost didn’t make it to this point. The Musketeers trailed Kennesaw State by 13 in the second half Friday before holding their opponent without a field goal for nearly eight minutes while rallying to a 72-67 victory.

Befitting a former point guard who also knows how to mold a roster, Xavier leads the nation in assists per game (19.2) and has won six of its past seven games without 6-foot-9 second-leading scorer Zach Freemantle. Jerome Hunter replaced Freemantle, and he scored 24 points Friday.

“It definitely feels good knowing we didn’t have our best game as a team, and we still found a way to advance,” guard Colby Jones said. “With that game behind us, I feel like the real Xavier team is going to come out Sunday.”

Before losing the Big East championship game to Marquette, 65-51, Xavier lost seven games by a total of 18 points. The worst of those was 71-64 to Duke on Nov. 25.

After winning the NIT last season with an interim coach, Xavier hired Miller for his second term at the Cincinnati school. Despite the existence of the transfer portal and NIL, Miller kept the team together.

“He came in and told us the truth,” Colby said. “He didn’t try to sugarcoat it. Our guys really like that, and we bought into his process and ideas. We just wanted to stick together one more year because we knew we had a special team.”

Added Hunter: “We all felt like we could have done more.”

“Coach gave us the best opportunity to do that,” 7-foot graduate student Jack Nunge said.

Xavier offers a much tougher challenge to Pitt than Mississippi State and Iowa State did. Neither of those teams were good on offense. Before Xavier hit only 2 of 12 3-point shots Friday, the Musketeers were second in the nation with a 39.5% success rate.

“This is a completely different style than we played the past two games,” Capel said. “Xavier is good defensively but really good offensively. Our mindset has to change. Our game plan will change.”

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