Louisville basketball: Will Hercy Miller see playing time for the Cards?

Could walk-on Hercy Miller be the solution for Louisville basketball at backup point guard?

Over the last month, we discussed concerns surrounding the Louisville basketball backcourt.

The Cards are still lacking true scholarship guards, and as of right now, head coach Kenny Payne will have to rely on guard/ wing combo players Mike James, Devin Ree, and Kamari Lands to fill in at the two guard position.

Still, behind point guard El Ellis, Louisville has little to no answer in the way of scholarship players.

While I think any rational fan would not prefer this scenario, Louisville basketball may be forced to rely on the services of its walk-on guard triumvirate of Zan Payne, Hercy Miller, and Aidan McCool.

More on this here: Why I am concerned about Louisville basketball’s guard situation

Payne, the son of UofL’s head coach, committed to play for his father at Kentucky in 2018 after playing his high school ball at Lexington Catholic. In four years with the Wildcats, Payne saw mop-up duty in 11 games. He will have two years of eligibility left after a redshirt season and a “free” COVID year.

McCool, a transfer from Maryland, has had a similar career to Payne, coming off the bench when games were out-of-hand for the Terps.

Miller stands out as the outlier among the walkons. The son of rap mogul and entrepreneur Master P, Miller generated a lot of buzz by signing a 4 year, $2 million NIL deal out of high school. But while his recruitment and college career have garnered a lot of headlines, he has yet to see much playing time.

There is more to the story, however. And although his college journey thus far has been rocky, there are some things to like about Miller’s game. Let’s talk about them.

High school career

Firstly, Miller was a relatively sought-after recruit out of high school given his current walk-on tag.

While he ultimately committed to play for HBCU Tennessee State, Miller held scholarship offers from USC, LSU, UCLA, Arizona, and Missouri among others.

At 6’3,” 180-pounds Miller brings solid size and athleticism to the table.

He was graded as a three-star recruit by rivals.com coming out of high school and had an impressive tape playing for Minnehaha Academy- A small Christian school in Minneapolis.

Setbacks at TSU and Xavier

Miller began his career backing up TSU senior point guard Carlos Marshall- A two-time all-OVC selection.

In an October exhibition, Miller played 21 minutes, scoring 7 points, notching 2 assists, and grabbing 4 boards.

Coming off the bench for the Tigers, Miller saw as many as 17 minutes of action in the team’s first six games of the season.

To date, however, that is the extent of Miller’s playing time at the college level.

In late November, Miller had a number of setbacks starting with a nagging injury he suffered in the first game of the season. He continued to play through the injury for five more games before deciding to shut it down for the season.

Citing issues with the way his injury was handled, the Millers explored different options before deciding to transfer mid-season, taking a walk-on role at Xavier.

“We’ve got a great program at Tennessee State, we’ve got great people, we loved the culture, we just don’t have enough trainers,” Master P said. “We don’t have enough medical people to take care of what needs to be taken care of. We don’t have the technology that the Dukes and all these major universities have. An injury like this could have been prevented.”

After Miller’s misdiagnosis, his family took him to a private specialist to be reevaluated.

“The specialist said if we would have waited any longer he probably wouldn’t have been able to play basketball anymore because next his ACL was going to go out and all other kinds of injuries,” said Master P.

TSU removed Miller from its roster and website and backed its team doctors in the process.

Meanwhile, Miller moved on to Xavier in January, where he continued to rehab and prepare for this upcoming season as a walk-on.

Xavier coach Travis Steele explained why Xavier decided to take in Miller mid-season.

“He transferred in from Tennessee State where he was playing this year as a freshman, got injured, and then I think he just decided he wanted to try to experience something different in college basketball,” said Steele. “So he’s joined our team as a walk-on. He’s a great young man, comes from a really good family.
He’s going to add a lot to us. I always say this with walk-ons, man, they help our team immensely prepare for every opponent and Hercy will do that once he gets healthy.”

Miller never saw any action at Xavier, deciding again to enter the transfer portal in May.

NIL Deals and likelihood of playing time

Now, Miller finds himself in a situation with an excellent opportunity in Louisville.

He is currently making $500,000 a year through his NIL partnership with Web Apps America and is primed for a potential breakout season at a premier power five program.

Regardless of if we like the situation as fans and supporters, the Cardinals may need Miller to step up in a major way at some point this season.

But is he up for the challenge?

Assessing Miller’s game, his strengths are as a lengthy defender, a distributor, and a finisher around the rim.

In high school, Miller showed the knack to jump into passing lanes and create extra possessions. He rebounds well for his size and plays with confidence and control.

His weaknesses are apparent, however. He is slow and methodical with the ball and much of why he thrived at the high school level is because of a lack of high-level competition.

My worry is that he would be easy to stay in front of at the power five level and that his handle is not strong enough to play serious minutes at the point for Louisville basketball this year.

If he can get back to full health, and strengthen his lower body, balance, and agility, Miller has a chance to see playing time behind Ellis.

Those are big “ifs”, however. He will need to regain his strength and balance and showcase improved ball-handling before he can be trusted as a primary back-up for a team with top 25 and NCAA Tournament aspirations.

Should all of this happen, Miller could ultimately play a role similar to former Louisville guard Elisha Justice as a walk-on that can give you reliable minutes on either side of media timeouts or in case of foul trouble. Anything outside of that may be a baptism by fire for the rising sophomore.