Miller becomes Hiland’s ‘King of Court Vision’

There’s a certain kind of magic when it comes to making a perfect pass in basketball.

It doesn’t get the accolades in the newspapers, and not many people recount it when retelling a game, but for that one magical moment when a dynamite assist comes out of nowhere, it ignites the crowd, makes jaws drop and elicits an emotion of awe.

Yes, it may have been a scintillating play, but perhaps the main reason it evokes such a sense of wonderment is because an assist is the ultimate team play.

Hiland senior guard Alex Miller has been on the giving end of those assists many times — enough times that in a storied program like Hiland’s that has produced a seemingly endless series of All-Ohio point guards who could dish it out, he now stands atop them all in career assists.

“I think seeing the floor and enjoying setting up my teammates is just something I’ve always enjoyed,” Miller said. “To me it’s more exciting than scoring. I’d rather make a nice pass and find an open guy for a score than to score myself. It gets people excited.”

As a former point guard with Hiland and The College of Wooster, current head coach Mark Schlabach knows what it takes to climb to the pinnacle of becoming an assist leader in such a successful program.

“You can’t be that kind of passer and have that type of vision unless you’ve played a lot of basketball,” Schlabach said. “That type of vision comes from playing a lot of unstructured, no-coaches-around, old-school pickup games. You simply can’t have the kind of feel Alex has for the game unless you’ve played a ton of basketball.”

Schlabach said Miller plays basketball when nobody is around, for the sheer love of the game.

“It’s so much about reps,” Miller said. “The more you play, the more you put yourself in those types of situations, the more instinctive it becomes.”

Schlabach said it takes more than just playing the game to get where Miller is today.

“When Alex was growing up, him and his dad (Thom Miller) went to games just to watch,” Schlabach said. “He grew up watching the game, and thus, he understands the game. That’s become a lost trait for kids today. That helps you develop a feel and better understanding of how the game works.”

The third part of the equation is a player must have a desire to be unselfish, something Schlabach said Miller has exhibited since his early days in youth basketball.

“For Alex it’s always been team over self,” Schlabach said.

“Growing up, I was always taught to play unselfish basketball,” Miller said. “I’ve always been taught that the desire to win as a team comes first. Having two 1,000-point scorers here my first couple years (Sammy Detweiler and Nick Wigton) took a lot of the pressure to need to score off.”

Finally, there is a fearless, almost reckless mentality that comes with the ability to see the floor well and risk everything to pull off that picture-perfect pass that thrills the crowd.

Schlabach said he and assistant coach Paul Zacour have talked about this trait in Miller many times, and they compare him to one former Hiland point guard when it comes to having that fearlessness.

“It’s Alex and Jason Mishler,” Schlabach said. “They will throw any pass.”

“I am a pretty impulsive type of person, and it’s not always going to end the way I hope,” Miller said. “Turnovers are part of the game, but there’s something very energizing about seeing things develop and making that perfect pass.”

Schlabach said early in Miller’s varsity career as a freshman and sophomore, he would often fill the box score with five or six turnovers. Experience at that level has lessened those numbers immensely, and Schlabach said the polished player fans see now is a version that makes him incredibly valuable despite not being an elite scorer.

All these traits helped him earn All-Ohio honors the past two seasons and to ease past another former all-time All-Ohioan for the career assist lead, that being Andy Miller, a similar type of player (430 career assists) who didn’t have to score to make a major impact.

“That is a record we did not think would ever get broken,” Schlabach said of the assist record.

Is floor vision a gift that is ingrained or something players develop over time?

Both Miller and Schlabach said it is a little bit of both, and both agree that to be that guy, you must want to be that guy and put scoring aside to do what is necessary to help the team succeed.

“Those kids who exhibit that unselfish nature at a young age, those are the special kids who like to pass the ball more than they like to score,” Schlabach said.

Miller said court vision is now simply part of the game, and it comes more naturally. It also is something he will always enjoy as being a central part of the game. Whether it is making a no-look pass on the fly on a fast break or driving hard to the hoop and firing a ball out to the arc for a trey, Miller enjoys every assist, and it has led him to the pinnacle of point guards at Hiland.