A season ago, Mason Miller led the Big East in 3-point percentage, hitting 49 of his 108 attempts for a 45.4% clip while starting all 33 games.
This season has gone very differently for the redshirt junior. He’s coming off the bench, he’s playing a different position and, most importantly, he’s not hitting shots.
Miller missed his first 13 attempts of the season, went 3-for-8 against Notre Dame and Kansas, then missed his next seven. Heading into the Providence game, Miller was 3-for-26 (11.5%) on the season.
The he found his way into the scoring column with a breakaway dunk (his second career slam) against the Friars and followed it up with a pair of triples from the left corner, both swishes, as he finished 2-of-3 from deep (the miss coming via a Friar block) with a season-high eight points plus four rebounds and a steal. Creighton beat the Friars by 20 with 29 bench points, including Miller’s, playing a significant role.
Coach Greg McDermott said before the game that Miller continued to put in work and shoot the ball well in practice and that he just needed to see one go in to snap out of his slump, and that finally happened on Tuesday.
“It definitely feels really good,” Miller said. “But I trusted myself the whole time. Obviously, I was talking to my dad and everything, and talking to people that I’m close with, and they know how confident I am in my shooting, and they just wanted me to make sure I was staying focused and confident the gym, and keep getting my work in, and it paid off the last game.”
His dad is NBA champion Mike Miller, who knocked down 1,590 3s at a 40.7% clip during his 17-year pro career. Miller said he reached out to his dad a couple weeks ago seeking feedback and encouragement.
“After the Marquette game, I texted him,” Miller said. “I went 0-for-3 that game, after going like 0-20 or something, so I had my dad come in town, and we worked on my shooting. I just got a lot more confident in that. I worked on some things I haven’t been working on, honestly, some things that I needed to work on that I wasn’t doing anymore in my shot routine. So that really helped a lot and got me more confident, too.”
Miller said his dad pointed out some tweaks he needed to make with his form and routine, and the advice paid dividends on Tuesday. He recalled going through a similar slump during a grassroots season in high school and similarly persevered through it thanks to the support and encouragement of his family and teammates.
Even before he had to deal with the mental hurdle of missing shots, Miller had to overcome a broken leg that derailed his offseason. While he didn’t pin his on-court struggles on the injury and its effects, it has continued to bother him into the season.
“It’s still been hurting every once in a while, but it’s definitely gotten a lot better the last couple weeks,” Miller said. “So I’m just kind of staying off it as much as I can, stuff like that, but I’m starting to trust it a little bit more now.”
Miller missed a couple of games early, but outside of that McDermott has continued to give him opportunities in every game at the three spot behind Jasen Green despite the shooting struggles.
“You kind of go off what you’ve seen,” McDermott said. “Mason was an integral part of our team a year ago, and certainly the gravity he provided shooting basketball was a big reason, and he improved defensively as the year went on. He has done some really good things on that end of the floor even when he wasn’t making shots. When a guy goes through an injury hasn’t had that kind of significant injury at any point in his career, that’s hard mentally to come back from. You’ve just got to stick with guys the best you can.”
McDermott’s trust has been rewarded over the past four games as Creighton has outscored its opponents by 48 points in Miller’s 63 minutes on the court. Though Miller hasn’t been doing much to fill out the stat sheet, the Jays have played some of their best basketball with him on the court over the past couple weeks.
“It definitely feels great having a coach like Coach Mac, having him where he trusts me to do other things other than shoot, because obviously my shot wasn’t going in,” Miller said. “So having them in my corner, just to still trust in me and still believe in me is a great.”
McDermott said after the Providence win that Creighton needed Miller to play at the level he’s capable of if the team hopes to reach its ceiling this season. Miller’s hoping his performance against the Friars is a step in that direction.
