Sean Miller has now seen his entire assistant coaching staff empty from his bench, but he doesn’t have anything to say about it - publicly at least.
The Arizona coach declined to comment Thursday after a loss to Washington regarding the situation he finds himself in after the school moved to terminate assistant Mark Phelps on Wednesday due to his reported involvement with an NCAA issue.
Sean Miller: "I'm not going to comment on it." Repeated that after questions about assistant Mark Phelps, who Arizona has suspended with the intent to terminate. pic.twitter.com/lMuqfXN2rv
— Javier Morales (@JavierJMorales) February 8, 2019
“I’m not going to comment on it,” was all Miller would say when asked repeatedly about the situation.
Arizona has been among those most impacted in the fallout of the federal investigation into corruption in college basketball (though the school said Phelps’ situation is unrelated) as former assistant Emmanuel ‘Book’ Richardson was arrested and ultimately agreed to plead guilty in connection with the case while former assistant and current UC-Santa Barbara coach Joe Pasternack has been connected to Christian Dawkins, who has been at the center of the case.
It’s clear the pressure is mounting on Miller in Tucson and the walls very well could be closing in on his tenure there, though the top-ranked 2019 recruiting class he has slated to come to campus this summer isn’t something Arizona is likely looking to part with. It’s probably not helping Miller that Arizona has now lost four in a row and five of six with its NCAA tournament hopes fading fast.
Who knows how this ends, but it’s definitely trending in the wrong direction quickly for Miller.