DaytonDailyNews.com

OXFORD — The long grind comes to an end tonight, Dec. 3, for the Miami University men's basketball team when the RedHawks pay a visit to the Temple Owls.

Counting tonight, in a span of 22 days Miami will have played six games, none at Millett Hall, while making five road trips, three of them 300 miles or more, to face six teams, four of which played in last season's NCAA tournament.

It's the first part of a challenging nonleague schedule for the RedHawks. Which is to say, it's business as usual for coach Charlie Coles.

So what does the 13th-year Miami coach have against soft, cuddly schedules? Some coaches swear by them.

"The most important thing for this time of year is for the team to get better," Coles explained, "and the formula for that is to play against better competition.

"I don't buy into the (philosophy) that if you play games you can win it builds confidence in the players. It doesn't," he said. "What builds confidence in the team is knowing that you're good."

Coles said he liked going against strong competition, usually on the road, when he played at Miami, and his players feel the same way.

"I think our guys like that, they enjoy going to Xavier and having 11,000 fans rooting for the other team, they enjoy playing UCLA and USC," he said. "It's the same thing Darrell Hedric and Dick Shrider did as coaches. They played against good teams."

In the three seasons Coles played guard under Shrider, he and teammates like Jeff Gehring, Jerry Peirson and Charley Dinkins went on the road against Wisconsin, Nebraska, Penn State, Purdue, Pittsburgh, Vanderbilt, Miami (Fla.) and Loyola (Ill.).

"If we pay attention and learn our lessons, it usually pays off at the end, if you have no major injuries or if nothing crazy happens," Coles said.

Miami's strong early-season strength of schedule backfired only once, he said. It was during the 2001-02 season.

"We had, in a row, Notre Dame at home, Southern Cal, Boston College and Georgia," Coles said. "All those teams were NCAA tournament teams that made it to at least the second round. That was a bit much. We had injuries that year and we never got back in stride.

Although the RedHawks have lost three of their fives games so far this year, the Miami coach said he likes what he has seen from his players. All three losses have come against ranked teams, and two of the games were undecided until the final minute.

"A big test will be (tonight)," he said. "We're coming off a highly emotional game against Xavier. This will be a test of where we are. The Xavier game was exhausting. We were emotionally ready to play that game. I hope we'll be the same way against Temple."

The Owls are led by 6-foot-5 senior guard Dionte Christmas, who averages 24.0 points and 8.2 rebounds per game.