On 6th year player CJ Fredrick
“I think you look down at those seven newcomers, it is a wide variety of guys, that have different abilities, they play different positions, or have different strengths and weaknesses, but also different levels of maturity and experience,” Wes Miller said. “You have someone like C.J Frederick, who might have as much experience in college basketball as anyone I have ever coached over the course of his career. He’s played on a team that was Top-5 in the country the whole season at Iowa that had a chance to win the national championship and was a starter and key contributor to that team. He spent two years there, two years in Kentucky. He has been through a lot which I think gives great perspective to leadership because he has been one of the key players in both programs he’s played at. He’s sat out and redshirted, fought through injuries, I mean he really does have a plethora of experience that gives him the ability to be mature and lead. The really neat thing about C.J is that he has a really unique way of connecting with everybody around him. He is one of those guys that comes in and does a great job connecting with the whole team. CJ brings something different than what guys like Jizzle James or Rayvon Griffith do, because they are coming from such different perspectives, but he has done a nice job working with our whole team. We have really high expectations for C.J. I will tell everybody because I am sure this is something people who know him or followed him are going to ask. He has had a really healthy summer and preseason. I think this is his first one in a couple of years that he has even been able to participate in. I didn’t realize this until I got to know him here this spring, but he wasn’t cleared to play live basketball until the first day of practice last season at Kentucky. That is really hard on a player, you didn’t have any summer or build up training and you get thrown right into it, but he’s had that here all summer and preseason, He’s healthy and I think that puts him in position to really perform well for us.”
On the Bearcats non-conference slate and transition to the Big 12
“Obviously it was strategic, with the move to a new conference, especially one that has been the best basketball conference in America for the last recent history. I think it’s almost inarguable, I always say people in recruiting try to act like their leagues are better and you just kind of laugh. It is just one thing you can’t argue, no matter what metric you value over the last 5-6 years, weather its national championships, Kenpom, Net, any advanced analytic system, The Big 12 has been the best league in college basketball for 5-6 years,” Wes Miller said. “Entering the Big 12 with no experience in that league, we wanted to make sure we were at home a lot because we are going to be on the road quite a bit traveling all over the country now that we go to Utah, and heck even Arizona in a couple of years. We wanted to make sure we we’re home, and that we had a chance to build our team here in Cincinnati, we didn’t want to over travel early in the season. Certainly, that doesn’t mean that we padded our schedule, I look at our schedule and see some real challenges, they might not be all names that our fans will go WOW that’s a crazy challenge, but I think if people really look at some of the opponents that are coming to Fifth Third Arena, some of them are picked to win their respected leagues, some played in the NCAA Tournament last year a lot of them are picked within the top three of their leagues heading into this season. We challenged ourselves more people may think, but trying to be home and around this area was really important. I look at the Dayton game, that will be a really intense environment. There’s traditional rivalry there, from the location, and recent history, so that will be something that really challenges us and prepares us for league play. Then you have the Crosstown Shootout vs Xavier, that will be that challenge every year. Damon Stoudamire and I were able to get together and agree on a home and home so we will play Georgia Tech here this year. Those are some of the marque games for sure, but I think people can’t look just at those, because there’s some other really challenging games on the schedule. I think it was a nice balance of really trying to challenge ourselves a little bit, but trying to be home, and get ready for the transition to the Big 12 was the most important factor.”
