Kansas men’s basketball coach Bill Self likes Nebraska coach Tim Miles.
He liked him when he was the head coach at Colorado State from 2007-12, knew about him when he led North Dakota State from 2001-07 and was thrilled for him when he heard he landed the Cornhuskers job five seasons ago.
“I think he’s a good coach,” Self said of the leader of today’s 2:15 p.m. opponent at Allen Fieldhouse. “And other people in our profession think it too. He’s a fun guy.”
Throughout his time as both a head coach and a fun guy, Miles has made a name for himself with both basketball knowledge and marketing genius. There was a stretch of his career, both at Nebraska and back at CSU, when Miles was known to Tweet from his personal Twitter account at halftime of games.
“You don’t see that very often,” Self joked at his Thursday meeting with the media. “But he’s probably the social media king of our profession. I understand why he does that. He’s generating interest for his program. I like him. I think he’s good and I think he’s done a really good job there.”
It’s funny that whole Tweeting at halftime thing came up. Because Miles just might do it.
“Maybe I’ll send Bill a direct message at halftime, ‘Take it easy,'” Miles joked in a phone interview with the Journal-World on Friday. “If I thought he could open it, I’d probably send him one.”
All joking aside, Miles is elated for his opportunity to finally step foot inside Allen Fieldhouse, a place he has revered from afar throughout his life.
“Being a young person growing up in South Dakota, where you had two channels, when Kansas played it meant something,” recalled the 50-year-old Miles. “Just the whole history of Dr. Naismith and Phog Allen all the way down to Bill Self. I’ve got Teddy Owens on my staff (as director of operations) and his father (Ted Owens Sr.) coached in that building for a number of years, so that means something to us and Kansas City has been good to us in recruiting. Any time you get an opportunity to play a program like Kansas, you jump at it.”
This will not be Miles’ first trip to Lawrence. Back in 2009, when he was recruiting former Lawrence High standout Dorian Green to CSU, Miles made a couple of trips to town but never so much as drove by Allen Fieldhouse.
That’s not to say Miles, who got his first glimpse at KU’s home gym on Friday night, has not linked himself to one of college basketball’s true blue blood programs in other ways.
Miles’ wife, Kari, recently purchased a print of Naismith’s original rules of basketball from the DeBruce Center and it is displayed in a conference room back on the Nebraska campus. Miles also recalled writing a letter to David Booth, who delivered the winning bid at an auction where the rules were sold in 2010, to express his admiration for Booth’s gesture to return the rules to Lawrence.
“I just wanted to let him know I thought that was really cool of him to do that,” Miles said.
Although his focus today will be on transition defense, half-court sets and trying to lead his 5-4 Huskers to an upset of the No. 3 team in the nation, Miles has plans to soak up the experience for all it’s worth, regardless of what plays out on the scoreboard.
“We’ll definitely take a picture on the floor,” Miles said. “It won’t be on our Christmas card, but I’ll save it on my phone and it’ll be nice to have.”