MILES OF TALENT : Forward David Miles Gives Orange Coast His Best Shots

There is a new drill at the end of each Orange Coast College men’s basketball practice these days.

Some players are calling it the David Miles Drill, but it’s more commonly known as the half-court shot.

The OCC players line up and fling the ball toward the basket in hopes of re-creating the shot that Miles made with no time left to beat Riverside, 65-62, Feb. 16 at Orange Coast.

The Pirates won their final three games, including the one against Riverside, to finish in a third-place tie with Saddleback in the Orange Empire Conference.

The third-place finish earned OCC a spot in the Southern California regional playoffs, which start Saturday. OCC (18-14) plays at Chaffey (16-13) at 7:30 p.m.

As nice as the three-point basket against Riverside was, Miles will be called on to perform closer to the basket if OCC is to be successful in the playoffs.

Against Riverside, OCC inbounded the ball with three seconds remaining and had to travel the length of the court. “We were looking for Derek Crane on the baseline,” OCC Coach Tandy Gillis said. “But if that was covered, we wanted Dave (Miles) to take the shot from midcourt. We design these plays a lot but they seldom work.”

Miles, a 6-foot 6-inch forward, was second in the conference in scoring at 20.4 points a game; he averaged 18.1 points overall. He led the conference in rebounding with 9.8 per game.

He scored a career-high 36 points against Rancho Santiago Feb. 10. In that game, OCC used an offense that was designed to take 25-30 seconds off the 45-second clock before getting the ball to Miles at the top of the key, where he went one-on-one.

Despite Miles’ heroics, including a three-point basket with 20 seconds left, OCC still lost, 64-63.

“I didn’t even know how many points I had that night,” Miles said. “But when some people told me I had 36, I wished I would have had 38 because then we would have won. In fact, I would have traded the 36 for 2 as long as those 2 would have helped us win.”

Miles, who was voted first-team all-conference, has been the key player for OCC all season.

“When we come down (the court on offense), I don’t expect to get it (the ball) every time,” he said. “But I want it as much as I can. It’s not being selfish, but I know if I score I can help the team win.”

The self-confidence Miles exhibits now is remarkable considering his recent past.

He grew up in San Francisco but later attended Petaluma High School, which is 40 miles north of San Francisco, where he averaged 25 points and 10 rebounds a game as a senior in 1984. But he lacked the grades necessary to attend a Division I college, which was his goal.

So Miles went to Santa Rosa Junior College but withdrew early in the fall of 1984 because he wasn’t interested in school.

Miles tried Saddleback on the suggestion of his father, who was a long-time friend of Bill Otta, the school’s assistant athletic director.

Miles started as a freshman at Saddleback in the 1985-86 season, when he averaged 13 points and 7.5 rebounds. But in the spring, he said he had some personal problems and stopped attending classes.

He sat out last season and worked as a carpet cleaner in Mission Viejo.

“He just had poor grades and dropped out,” said Bill Brummel, Saddleback coach. “After that, I really don’t know what happened to him. He just had to get himself straightened out. People grow up at different times.”

Miles said he didn’t think much about returning to basketball until he heard a friend of a friend say he was a wasted talent.

“I had to prove I was no wasted talent,” Miles said. “I really hated to be called that.”

So he enrolled at OCC last fall on the advice of friend Brian Trevino, who had played at OCC from 1985-87.

But it also meant going back to class to try to make up the units he failed at Saddleback. Miles went to summer school and then took 15 units last fall. He earned a 3.45 grade point average.

He is taking 20 units this spring, but may have to take classes this summer again in order to be able to transfer in the fall.

Several colleges, including USC, Baylor and the University of San Francisco, have shown interest in Miles.

“He has the skills to be a fine off-guard in college,” Gillis said. “We let him handle the ball some and he is fine with it. But he is also a good inside player and he follows his shot better than most . . . even if it’s from half court.”

Playoff Notes

The Orange Coast-Chaffey game, which was first scheduled for Saturday, then switched to Friday, has been switched back to Saturday. Chaffey’s normal playing night is Friday, so it scheduled the game for Friday. But the state office requested Thursday that the game be moved back to Saturday. . . . Forward Chancellor McCobb leads Chaffey with 19.6 points and 6.7 rebounds.