Dick Vitale was one of Sean Miller’s loudest critics when the FBI investigation into college basketball put the Arizona Wildcats’ program in hot water.
The longtime ESPN analyst called the UA “sleazy” and even publicly called for Miller’s job on Twitter after assistant coach Book Richardson was arrested for bribery and corruption.
If u r a coach & u have had contact over the past few yrs with CHRISTIAN DAWKINS / u r not sleeping like a baby but probably crying like a baby / do u hear me @APlayersProgram Coach SEAN MILLER? Sorry Sean time to start packing the bags!
— Dick Vitale (@DickieV) February 24, 2018
But that tweet was back in February.
It’s now June and Vitale is now tweeting that you “must give a tip of the hat to Sean Miller and [Arizona] for the way they have bounced back from negative PR from the FBI report and arrest of his assistant.”
By bouncing back, Vitale is referring to the three freshmen and two graduate transfers that Arizona added to its revamped roster, which could be one of the best in the Pac-12 next season.
Vitale’s comments are ironic since some of the “negative PR” he is talking about came from him, when he took to ESPN and Twitter to rip on Miller and the Arizona program.
Still, his flip-flop is good for Arizona. No matter how much weight you put into Vitale’s opinion, he is undeniably one of the most recognizable figures in college basketball.
His Twitter account has over 900,000 followers, so people hear what he has to say. And Arizona basketball needs any positive attention it can get right now — especially for its recruiting efforts — and Vitale delivered just that.