New Hampshire: Wes Miller
(Note: THI is naming the greatest former UNC football or basketball player from each of the 50 states. The criteria is the player had to live in the state he represents at some point before arriving at UNC. The duration doesn’t matter, he just had to live there. College and pro careers were factored with a lean toward their UNC accomplishments.)
Roy Williams made one basic promise to Wes Miller in 2003, and it wasn’t playing time.
Miller had just completed his freshman season at James Madison and wanted to play and learn at North Carolina. A native of Charlotte, he grew up watching ACC basketball and had a desire to one day be a college coach himself, and he knew if he could get into Williams’ inner circle that would immensely help the process.
“I told him the first day I ever met him when he said he wanted to be a coach, ‘You should come here because the things we do will help you,’” Williams said, recalling the conversation he had with Miller not long after returning to UNC as its head coach.
Miller began his high school basketball career at Charlotte Country Day and concluded it playing three years at New Hampton Academy in New Hampshire. From there, Miller played a year at James Madison before transferring to North Carolina, where he played his final three years of college basketball.
He was there to get his degree and become a coach, but he ended up playing quite a bit along the way, though he wasn’t so sure he’d ever take off the warmups.
“When I decided to come play for Coach at Carolina, it was because I wanted to be a coach, I didn’t think I had a chance to play in the games,” Miller said. “And he told me that, too, he said ‘You might never play.’ He told me, ‘If you come here, I promise I will help you get into coaching.’
“And I was 28 years old and the youngest Division One (head) coach in America and he had as much to do with it as anybody.”
Miller was elevated to the head position at UNC-Greensboro during the 2011-12 season and remains there today. But, before he ever blew a whistle and named a game a pre-game speech, there was that time he played some serious hoops for the Tar Heels.
He was a sophomore on the 2005 national championship team, though he scored just 24 points that season. He made a huge leap the following year, moving into the starting lineup before New Year’s and scoring 222 points on the season. He averaged 7.2 points per game in 22.9 minutes per contest. He was 64-for-145 from 3-point range (44.1 percent) and was Carolina’s best defensive player.
Miller went back to a reserve role as a senior but never complained. He still played nearly 11 minutes a game, which is a lot more than he or Williams ever expected when he arrived in Chapel Hill.
“He came closer to reaching his potential as a player than anybody I’ve ever coached,” Williams said a year ago. “You look at him, I say 5-5 it makes him mad, so I’ll make him 5-7 today. He was a tough, tough kid taking charges. Still, one of the three best charges that I’ve ever had was a charge he took at Arizona, and that’s in 30 years. So, he’s a tough kid.
“Five (3-pointers) in the first game he ever started, five threes against Kentucky. So, the toughness… and he’s a bright kid – he’s not a kid anymore.”
Miller, who played in 93 games as a Tar Heel, was actually listed at 5-foot-11 in UNC’s media guide. The Tar Heels were 87-19 overall, including 37-11 in ACC play, during Miller’s three seasons. The Heels also won two ACC regular season titles and one ACC Tournament crown. Their NCAA Tournament record during those three seasons was 10-2.
In seven full seasons and a partial campaign as the head coach at UNC-Greensboro, Miller has led the Spartans to a 141-117 overall record, though in the last three seasons UNCG has gone 81-25 reaching one NCAA Tournament and two NITs.