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Kenny Hayes (center), a senior guard on the Miami University basketball team, listens to Charlie Coles, the head coach, during a recent practice.

Ron Alvey/Staff photo by Ron Alvey Kenny Hayes (center), a senior guard on the Miami University basketball team, listens to Charlie Coles, the head coach, during a recent practice.

By John Bombatch, Staff Writer Updated 8:22 AM Wednesday, December 23, 2009

OXFORD — While he’s well aware of the talents of the Xavier Musketeers, Miami University basketball coach Charlie Coles is more concerned with righting his RedHawks.

Miami (3-8) travels to Cincinnati tonight, Dec. 23, to face the Musketeers (6-4) at the Cintas Center in the 97th meeting between the two schools.

“Whether it’s Xavier or whoever we’re playing, (worrying about) the opponent is not where we’re at right now,” Coles said after Monday night’s practice. “We’re just not playing very good basketball right now, so we gotta worry about that first.”

Miami has lost four of its last five games, including Saturday’s 68-61 road loss to Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Coles said there wasn’t any part of that game that went well for the RedHawks.

“We weren’t very good in that game, from start to finish,” he said. “Now the guys work very, very hard in practice. They work their butts off for me. We just have a tough time carrying that kind of effort over to our games.”

One bright spot to come out of the Milwaukee loss was the play of freshman guard Orlando Williams. The Princeton High School product poured in a career-high 17 points — all in the second half — to help Miami erase what had been a 19-point deficit.

“You know, I’m really anxious to see what he can do, whether he has any consistency to his game,” Coles said. “Hopefully he can be good at Xavier.”

Jordan Crawford, a 6-foot-4 sophomore guard out of Detroit, leads the Muskies at 18.4 points per game. He scored 20 against No. 21 Butler.

Still, Coles’ immediate concern is his team. While the RedHawks haven’t exactly gone back to fundamentals in practice, they have pared down the playbook a bit.

“We’ve simplified our plays and we’re all making sure we’re on the right page out there,” Coles said. “If we can go out and play good defense, and not turn the ball over on offense, we’ll be all right.”

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