How is he desperate? People have been asking for a change in Miller's recruiting pattern for years from stocking up on OADs to recruiting glue guys who've played in professional ball already (Lithuania is no joke). He's doing exactly that. Getting players who'll buy into his defensive philosophy is what made him successful at Xavier and the early part of his tenure at Arizona. From my vantage point, he's adapting and going back to his roots.
BTW - can't blame Miller for Natyazhko or Akot. Kyryl was a complete stiff in college and was outplayed by others. Akot was a crappy teammate and resistant to coaching, which is why he failed at Arizona. Doesn't help that he spent most of his time whining to his former AAU coach because Miller made him work hard. A dude who quit on his brothers in the middle of the season doesn't deserve the benefit of the doubt. He's a POS, as far as I'm concerned.
Not sure where you got that from Ristic. Dude became one of the best offensive players in the conference as he got older through the program. His trajectory was always to play overseas after college.
Because instead of simply changing his recruiting pattern, he has completely trashed his original approach and gone almost exclusively to foreign recruits, something no other coach has ever done before. It's one thing to change to bring in more glue guys to compliment the OADs. It's another to abandon the OADs altogether and build a team exclusively of glue guys and no stars. Yes, he has gone back to his approach at Xavier, which might work at the mid-major level, but is likely to fail at the high-major level. I applaud him for at least trying something different, but this extreme of a shift this quickly reeks of desperation, in my opinion.
In terms of Ristic, he was projected immediately as a second round NBA draft pick when he arrived at Arizona, and was projected to be a lottery pick with development over the course of a year or two. In the end, he wasn't anywhere close to getting drafted or to playing in the NBA. He actually got worse over time.
