Texas guard Dailyn Swain is happy to be a Longhorn and looking forward to winning another First Four game at UD Arena. Last year he played for Xavier and beat Texas. (Press Pros Feature Photos by Jeff Gilbert)
Texas duo Sean Miller and Dailyn Swain have been to UD Arena before, but the differences from their previous trips represents how weird college basketball has gotten.
By Marcus Hartman for Press Pros
Dayton, OH — When it comes to homecomings at the 2026 First Four, the University of Texas has the market cornered — in maybe the weirdest way possible.
Then again, perhaps their status is just another sign of the times in college basketball.
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Sean Miller and Dailyn Swain, both currently of the Longhorns men’s basketball program, have their share of memories at UD Arena, both together and apart.
For Miller, most came as head coach at Xavier from 2004-09 and again from 2022-25. Swain played in the OHSAA Final Four twice (2022 and ’23) for Columbus Africentric.
Veteran columnist Marcus Hartman writes the Buckeyes and sports at large for Press Pros Magazine.com.
Miller’s Musketeer teams were 2-3 at UD while Swain’s Nubians went 0-2 against Ottawa-Glandorf despite his scoring 32 and 21 points, respectively, in the two games.
So the memory Miller and Swain might share is probably the best, but there’s a catch: It came at the expense of their current team.
With Miller coaching, Swain scored 11 points and grabbed four rebounds 52 weeks ago for Xavier as the Musketeers beat Texas 86-80 in a First Four game, and the irony was not lost on him or his teammates.
“Yeah, we’ve kind of joked about that all year, so it’s kind of ironic and weird that we’re back here, a little déjà-vu feeling,” said Texas senior guard Jordan Pope. “I’m glad to have Dailyn and Coach Miller on my side this time, and I think it’ll play out a lot better than it did last year.”
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This week a year ago, Miller was in his second stint as the coach of the Musketeers, but not for long. He led Xavier for one more game — an 86-73 loss to Illinois in the round of 64 — then became the head coach at Texas in a twist that seemed odd even by today’s standards.
Nonetheless, Miller brought with him Swain, a 6-8 guard/forward who averaged 11 points and 5.5 rebounds for the Musketeers last season after posting 4.6 points and 3.0 rebounds as a freshman.
“If you followed us this year, there aren’t too many players that play college basketball that had a better overall season than Dailyn did,” – Texas head coach Sean Miller
This season, Swain has blossomed into an all-around threat, averaging 17.8 points, 7.6 rebounds, 3.4 assists and 1.7 steals per game. He shoots 34.5% from 3-point range and 55.1% from the floor and was named second-team All-SEC as well as the league’s newcomer of the year.
“If you followed us this year, there aren’t too many players that play college basketball that had a better overall season than Dailyn did,” Miller said. “Let’s start with the fact that he led us in five categories, averaged almost 20 points a game in the SEC.”
The change engulfing college basketball can be overwhelming for the average fan — not to mention sportswriters — but Miller said he does not have a hard time compartmentalizing the past from the present.
Then again, that seems to be a skill most basketball coaches must have these days for more than one reason.
Aside from their own propensity to change jobs on the regular, most are dealing with mostly new rosters almost annually thanks to relaxation of the transfer rules.
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“I would just tell you that what once was is no longer, whether that means a postseason meeting with a player that would return, how you go about recruiting, even to some degree player development — how you build your roster,” Miller said.
“I think all of us are trying to No. 1, identify what’s best for our individual programs, what works for us to be the best that we can be at the University of Texas. It might be different for somebody else at a different program or different area of the country.
Texas head coach Sean Miller has adjusted to the changes in college basketball and brought Dailyn Swain with him from Xavier.
“I think it’s just a moving target, and there’s a lot that goes into it, a lot of thought. And even in the last year, I think things are constantly evolving and growing, and we’re all trying to evolve and adapt and grow with it, and quite frankly learn from others. There are programs, the ones that are thriving, what are the decisions they’re making that we have to start looking at differently maybe than we once did.”
The evolution of college basketball is obviously working out for Swain.
He’s developed enough in the past year to be able to credibly field a question about whether or not he might enter the NBA Draft (he said he hasn’t thought about it yet), but he can also still yuck it up with his former foes and current teammates.
“It’s definitely a full-circle moment a little bit,” Swain said Monday. “My first few days at Texas, I kind of joked with them about how we beat them. Now we’re teammates, and I never let them forget. I remind them probably once a week. It’s definitely a funny feeling, but like he said, I think it’ll be a better result for the Longhorns this time.”
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Monday he dropped a line of the more self-deprecating kind.
“I lost in the Final Four two years in a row here, and really the only good feeling I have is when we beat Texas here last year,” Swain said with a grin. “So I’m trying to hold on to that as much as I can.”
Dailyn Swain likes to remind his teammates that his Xavier team beat them last year in the First Four.
With all this change, is there any constant in CBK?
Well, Miller came up with one: the building in which he was sitting.
“I’m very comfortable soon as I walk in the building,” he said. “I know there’s a ramp. I’ve gone up and down it who knows how many times.”
But there’s more than that, of course.
The looks of things might change around the country, but at least it sounds the same here.
“Look, I said this every time that I’ve ever been here: I don’t know if there’s a building, an arena in America that’s any better than UD Arena on game day. It’s amazing,” Miller said. “I just think, like, the sound is, it’s just prevalent. It’s not like some of the new buildings where it’s so spacious and so new that you can’t hear the loudness as much. Here, you do.”
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