Patrick Miller, Tennessee State University guard and the leading scorer in the Ohio Valley Conference, joined us on TSL Sports Talk last week to talk HBCU basketball. Despite Miller’s impressive individual player stats, TSU’s disappointing season record of 5-25 has put a damper on the team’s potential. However, the Chicago native's talent is truly undeniable.
TSL Sports Talk host Mark Gray opens up the discussion by comparing Miller to former Philadelphia 76ers player Fred Carter, stating that Carter was known as being the best player on the worst team in ’68. Similarly, Gray told Miller that he believes Miller is the best player on one of the most disappointing teams in college basketball. Gray asked Miller how he kept himself motivated to go out there every night and put out his best effort despite his team’s disappointing record.
Miller:
“Coming into the season, well, the season before conferences started, we started off pretty bad. I just wanted to keep working and have the team keep working to just try and get better in conference play because that’s the ultimate goal- to just make the conference tournament and win your conference. But unfortunately, we weren’t able to get any key wins and we just struggled the whole year.. but I just wanted to stay positive as the leader of the team and I stuck to the coaches plan. Even though the year didn’t go as we planned, we weren’t [the team] the record showed. We were a better team than that. We just couldn’t seem to get the job done.”
Listen to the full interview below to hear more about Miller’s thoughts on his team, basketball icons that influenced him and much more.
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