Speaker 1: Remaining unbeaten college basketball teams in the country. They're seventeen
Speaker 1: and oh after Friday night's win at Toledo. Next up
Speaker 1: Central Michigan tomorrow night at home, and Malet should be
Speaker 1: rocking for more on that. Let's go straight to the
Speaker 1: source and welcome in head coach Travis Steele. How are you.
Speaker 2: I'm doing great, Lance, Thanks for having me on great catching.
Speaker 1: Up with you, Travis. I think more and more people
Speaker 1: around the country are like going, holy crap, Miami seventeen
Speaker 1: and oh are you? I guess to what extent are
Speaker 1: Are you surprised you're seventeen?
Speaker 2: And oh? Not really? You know, I knew when we
Speaker 2: put this team together we had a chance to be special.
Speaker 2: And I think what makes us really good We got
Speaker 2: great We got really talented basketball players, but we have winners.
Speaker 2: We have guys that are very, very process oriented. They
Speaker 2: take advantage of every day man, So I'm not surprised
Speaker 2: with the results that we've gotten.
Speaker 1: Friday night, you shot better than fifty percent from the
Speaker 1: field for the thirteenth time this season. Travis, I gotta
Speaker 1: tell you, in watching you guys, you're like an instructional
Speaker 1: video of passing to get to the good shot time
Speaker 1: and time again. It's uncanny to watch.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a it's a fun way to play, right.
Speaker 2: Our guys pass up good shots to get great shots,
Speaker 2: and we have very very high i qs out there.
Speaker 2: We have great spacing and cutting and movement. We play fast,
Speaker 2: so we're hard to prepare for. You know, we've got
Speaker 2: seven guys score over twenty points in a game this year,
Speaker 2: and just the balance itself makes us, I think, very
Speaker 2: difficult to defend.
Speaker 1: A couple of games ago, you shoot thirty you're number
Speaker 1: one shooting team in the country, fifty three percent from
Speaker 1: the field. A couple of games ago you shoot thirty
Speaker 1: eight percent, but win at Akron. Did that show you
Speaker 1: something about your team?
Speaker 2: It did? You know, we didn't have our a great
Speaker 2: night offensively, and give Accron credit, you know, like they
Speaker 2: defended us well, but we also missed a lot of
Speaker 2: open looks. And you know, for us to be able
Speaker 2: to win our conference tournament in Cleveland in March, odds
Speaker 2: are one of the three games we're not going to
Speaker 2: shoot well and can you win that game? I thought
Speaker 2: the grit to fight, the toughness that our guys showed
Speaker 2: against Akron to beat them a week and a half ago. Man,
Speaker 2: it's going to really serve us well.
Speaker 1: Moving forward, Travis, with all the public attention that continues
Speaker 1: to grow and head the way of your guys to
Speaker 1: talk to me about how big it is from their
Speaker 1: their maturity and their focus standpoint as a group.
Speaker 2: Well, I think you know player, I said this before
Speaker 2: to you, Lance, but I think player led teams are
Speaker 2: way way better than coach led teams. And you know,
Speaker 2: Suitor Ipsorrow and Ian Elmer are three captains voted by
Speaker 2: their teammates, do a great job of helping us lead
Speaker 2: this team. And we're really focused. It's like we use
Speaker 2: the we have a picture that kind of stays around
Speaker 2: our program of a guy driving a car and looking
Speaker 2: out the front windshield. There's a reason why the rearview
Speaker 2: mirror is so small because everything that's already happened or seventeen,
Speaker 2: you know, that's in the past. We're going to look
Speaker 2: forward for the obstacles that are in front of us,
Speaker 2: because there's several of them. And starting with Central Michigan. Obviously,
Speaker 2: tomorrow night you.
Speaker 1: Mentioned Evan Ipsorrow. You lost him, your point guard, your
Speaker 1: guy five games ago. Explain to listeners what he meant
Speaker 1: to this team, and how you've gone about replacing all
Speaker 1: that he offered your team.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Evan is I love him, you know, number one,
Speaker 2: I just heard fro him as a human being. You know,
Speaker 2: any time a guy goes down with an injury, it stinks.
Speaker 2: And he was having a breakout year. I thought he
Speaker 2: was one of the best mid major point guards in
Speaker 2: the entire country. He's our heart and soul in a
Speaker 2: lot of ways. So when we lost them, we knew
Speaker 2: it was going to be a big adjustment, you know.
Speaker 2: And we still have a lot of really really good
Speaker 2: players on our team, so we knew again it wasn't
Speaker 2: no no one player was going to replace Evan, But
Speaker 2: we just look a little different. You know. We rebound
Speaker 2: the ball a little bit better. We're turning it over
Speaker 2: a little bit more. That's offset, and the rebounds is
Speaker 2: offset and that, and we're figuring it out. It's kind
Speaker 2: of by committee the point guard position. And Luke Skaaljack's
Speaker 2: really done a nice job as a sophomore, you know,
Speaker 2: kind of leading our play making duties.
Speaker 1: I follow Pete Suitter closely. He's a Carmel height school
Speaker 1: guy like me, So I got to follow him. And
Speaker 1: last year he led you guys in scoring. He had
Speaker 1: a forty two point game. Now he's I think third
Speaker 1: on the team in scoring, maybe not shooting quite as much.
Speaker 1: But here's what jumps out to me, Travis. His field
Speaker 1: goal percentage, he's up eight percent from last year. His
Speaker 1: three point is up twelve percent last year. And his
Speaker 1: as sister up tell me about his change or continued
Speaker 1: development from last year to this year.
Speaker 2: Ultimate winner's Pete, you know, coming from a Carmel program.
Speaker 2: I know, lady, you said you just went there many
Speaker 2: Carmel wins. It everything. I feel like, you know, Pete's
Speaker 2: won his whole life. And he understands sacrifice and he's
Speaker 2: at the very top of the scouting report for every game.
Speaker 2: You know so, and he just does what the game
Speaker 2: tells him to do. As simple as that. He doesn't
Speaker 2: care about scoring, he doesn't care about shots. He is
Speaker 2: playing to win. And when your best player does that,
Speaker 2: it permeates throughout the rest of the team.
Speaker 1: You mentioned the scouting report, and earlier you mentioned and
Speaker 1: this is where it's going back to. Seven different guys
Speaker 1: have scored at least twenty points in a game this year.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't want to prepare a scouting report for against
Speaker 1: you guys, because I wouldn't know where to begin.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it makes us hard reguard, you know, just our space,
Speaker 2: our pace that we play with. We don't run a
Speaker 2: lot of set plays like at Toledo Lance. You'll laugh,
Speaker 2: I called. I only called set plays on baseline out
Speaker 2: of bounds and sideline out of bounds plays. You know,
Speaker 2: because our group knows how to play the playoff of
Speaker 2: one another, the red react. It makes it super, super
Speaker 2: difficult to scout because again we have to play teams
Speaker 2: three times sometimes in a year in order to win
Speaker 2: our league in the conference tournament, and we got to
Speaker 2: be hard to play in that third.
Speaker 1: Game, Travis, from that standpoint of play calling and backing
Speaker 1: off that have you have you always been that way
Speaker 1: or have you evolved into that?
Speaker 2: I've evolved into it. You know. I used to want
Speaker 2: to control a lot and again everything's different, you know.
Speaker 2: But again we've recruited very, very high to skilled guys,
Speaker 2: guys that I really trust, you know. I use practice
Speaker 2: as a way, like listen, I teach them how to play,
Speaker 2: and then during the game, I trust them, I let them,
Speaker 2: do you know I want them to play with a
Speaker 2: free mind, a ton of confidence, and just do what
Speaker 2: the game tells them to do.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm so glad you said that because there
Speaker 1: and I'm not mentioning specifics here, but there are times
Speaker 1: I watch coaches who will stand and bark almost one
Speaker 1: pass to the next passive year pass it there, or
Speaker 1: do this, do that, And I can't imagine playing Listen
Speaker 1: to all that. Your guys must love the freedom that
Speaker 1: you give them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that freedom's earned right every single day with
Speaker 2: just their process and practice and their work habits. But
Speaker 2: it's a fun way to play. Man. What happens is,
Speaker 2: in my opinion, because defense and offense are super connected,
Speaker 2: so different than football, is that if you're connected on
Speaker 2: the offensive end, and you're moving and you're cutting and
Speaker 2: you're touching the ball, you'll give even a better effort
Speaker 2: on defense, in my opinion, because of your offensive.
Speaker 1: Then you feel like you're a part of it all right,
Speaker 1: When you've won seventeen in a row, are you? Are
Speaker 1: you by nature superstitious in any way? Do you do
Speaker 1: you wear the same socks? Is there anything going on
Speaker 1: that you'd like to publicly admit to From a superstition standpoint.
Speaker 2: You know, so I do. I have this blue shirt
Speaker 2: that I've been wearing underneath my quarter zip, and my
Speaker 2: wife last year's like, why are you wearing this? It's
Speaker 2: not our color. I said, listen, it's been work and
Speaker 2: we can't change it up now. We got to keep
Speaker 2: it going. I love that.
Speaker 1: I love that last thought. And you are. You're not
Speaker 1: in the top twenty five today, you're close twenty nine.
Speaker 1: I don't know why you're not. But is that a
Speaker 1: does that bug you? Is that a talking point? Is
Speaker 1: it motivation? Or is it just the rankings and they'll
Speaker 1: work themselves out?
Speaker 2: You know, I think we use it as motivation. Our
Speaker 2: guys have a chip on their shoulder. There's no doubt
Speaker 2: in their mind that started from last year how the
Speaker 2: last year ended. In the Mac Tournament Championship game, we've
Speaker 2: used the hashtag unfinished business a lot. We've got a
Speaker 2: lot to proof, we get a lot to prove. We
Speaker 2: want the whole world to see it.
Speaker 1: Tomorrow night, Central Michigan at Mallette Place should be jumping. Hey.
Speaker 1: I know you're busy, and man, we're twenty four hours
Speaker 1: from game time. I really appreciate you making time and
Speaker 1: always enjoy our conversations. Hope we can do it again soon.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, thanks for having me on.
Speaker 1: Thanks Travis, There you go, Travis steel Head, coach seventeen
Speaker 1: in o Miami RedHawks, one of five remaining unbeatens in
Speaker 1: the country. You know, it's not just a throw away line.
Speaker 1: They're a good shooting team. They're the best shooting team
Speaker 1: in the country. Let me give you some numbers. I
Speaker 1: like numbers. They're shooting fifty three percent. I think there's
Speaker 1: only I looked it up this morning. I think there's
Speaker 1: only twenty five teams out of three hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: Division one that are at the fifty percent mark shooting
Speaker 1: from the field. Miami is at fifty three percent on
Speaker 1: two point shots. That means the percentage of shots taken
Speaker 1: inside of the three point line. They are number two
Speaker 1: in the country. On three point shots, they are number
Speaker 1: one in the country, and when standing at the free
Speaker 1: throw line, they are number eight in the country. So
Speaker 1: recapping the best shooting team in the country second best
Speaker 1: from two, first best from three, best from three, and
Speaker 1: eighth at the free throw line and watching them, as
Speaker 1: I said, it is uncanny watching them pass to a
Speaker 1: from a good shot to a better shot, seemingly every
Speaker 1: single possession. I know it's not everyone, it feels that way,
Speaker 1: and as he said, it showed a lot when they
Speaker 1: weren't shooting their their night. They were off from shooting
Speaker 1: at thirty eight percent against Akron, and yet found a
Speaker 1: way to win the game Central Michigan Tomorrow night, twenty
Speaker 1: ninth Today, as mentioned in the AP Top twenty five