Miller, Ryan shouldn’t need Final Four trips to validate their careers

LOS ANGELES

If you’re looking for fair, stop reading.

This is reality: That in the world of coaching at the major college level of basketball, the macrocosm of an existence where men are paid exorbitant amounts of money to win games and put butts in seats and generate revenue for a university’s bottom line while raising the national stature of said school, advancing to the Final Four of the NCAA Tournament is the ultimate of measuring sticks.

It is the place where previously falling short is suddenly viewed as incredibly successful.

Where a guy can be lifted from the shoulders of elite to the mountaintop of legendary.

Where an entire perspective about one’s career instantly changes.

And it’s not fair.

And that’s too bad.

Sean Miller is arguably the country’s best recruiter not named John Calipari. Miller is also considered an expert coach, having led teams to the Sweet 16 six times and Elite Eight four. In his sixth season at Arizona, Miller has it going as well as any other coach nationally.

But he is also the latest to own this moniker: Best coach not to have reached a Final Four.

Guess what?

He embraces it.

“I don’t know if I have an alternative,” Miller said. “If you don’t embrace it, what do you do? There is a lot of pressure on coaches about advancing in the tournament, probably sometimes unfairly. Not many people talk about us winning the Pac-12 Conference back-to-back years like we have, and I don’t know if there is anything harder. The focus is always on that last game of a season.

“If it ends in the Elite Eight, it sticks with you for sure. But for me and our team and our program, you can’t forget that it’s quite an accomplishment at this level. There has to be a good feeling and some sense of gratification. If not, I mean, you’re working awfully hard for something that doesn’t happen frequently, to be in a Final Four or win a national championship.”

His next opportunity to take that elusive and immensely difficult step comes today, when the Wildcats get a rematch against Wisconsin in the West Regional final at Staples Center. The Badgers beat Arizona 64-63 in overtime last year in nearby Anaheim, Calif., sending coach Bo Ryan to the Final Four for the first time at this level.

Ryan might be the best example of how foolish it is to evaluate a career based solely on whether a coach reaches the Final Four. He has won 738 games, led Wisconsin to 14 straight NCAA fields and seven Sweet 16s, never finished below fourth in the Big Ten and is the winningest coach in Division III history, where he directed Wisconsin-Platteville to four national titles.

Ryan’s resume needed to be validated by a Final Four like Calipari needs to search hard for a free meal in Lexington, Ky.

“(Miller) is like me,” Ryan said. “I’m sure he doesn’t care. We don’t get into this profession to just do one certain thing. It’s all about the years and the days and the hours that you spend with your guys doing our job. There are many good people, good teachers, good coaches, that never went to a Final Four. I look at the guys I coached against in Division III for 15 years. They could outcoach 90 percent of coaches in Division I. They could outcoach them.

“As far as validation or solidifying your profession being one thing you end up doing or not, that’s ridiculous. Sean is a good coach. He has worked with a lot of young men and will work with a lot more. And what he ends up doing with his team in their journey is not going to be the final answer of who he is.”

But it is also the reality of their business, why you have seen in the past few weeks coaches who led their teams to the NCAAs now unemployed. It used to be that making the bracket was enough. You have to advance now.

And for those current coaches in Miller’s neighborhood of being considered terrific at what they do and yet lacking a Final Four trip, for the likes of Mark Few of Gonzaga and Tony Bennett of Virginia and Jamie Dixon of Pittsburgh and a handful of others, the stigma will stick until they can finally crash the ultimate party.

“Getting to the Final Four with Coach Miller is what we all came here to do,” Arizona freshman Stanley Johnson said. “I know that’s what I got recruited for.”

Miller actually has been a part of five Elite Eight games, once as an assistant and the four as a head coach at Xavier and Arizona. Two of those losses, a 65-63 setback to Connecticut in 2011 when the Wildcats had two shots to win and neither fell, and then last year against Wisconsin in overtime, can best be described as gut-wrenching.

His next opportunity comes today.

“For us as a program, we have competed regularly to make the Final Four,” Miller said. “If you let it define you or you tighten up, that’s not going to work. We can’t make things like this game (today) bigger than they need to be. Just try to be the best we can. That’s our identity. Let the chips fall. The more times you put yourself in this position, eventually you’re going to break through.”

The reality is, how others perceive an elite coach at his level without a Final Four trip is a heavy cross to bear.

And it’s not fair.

And that’s too bad.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ed Graney can be reached at egraney@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4618. He can be heard from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday on “Gridlock,” ESPN 1100 and 100.9 FM. Follow him on Twitter: @edgraney.