Well, it seems as if Charlie Coles has made the transition from college coach to expectant fan.

Miami University’s new coach – John Cooper – was up on the dais Tuesday morning with the area’s other Division I basketball coaches for the second annual Southwest Ohio Coaches vs. Cancer Tip-Off Breakfast and he was being especially gracious as he told what it was like to take over for the 70-year-old Coles, who retired after last season following 22 years as a head coach, 16 with the RedHawks.

“He certainly set the bar high,” Cooper said of Coles, who won more games than any other Miami coach and more league games than anyone in Mid-American Conference history. “The bar is extremely high.”

Out in the audience of business leaders, boosters and fans, Coles – who was sitting with his wife Delores – motioned for the crowd microphone.

“The bar was not set very high last year,” Coles deadpanned. “When you win just nine games, the bar is not very high. You’ll be able to jump over that … in November.”

As the crowd roared, Cooper rolled his eyes: “Oh really? You all hear that? … By November!”

It was a morning of laughter, insight, banter and good deeds at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Cincinnati.

Organizers said the breakfast raised over $100,000 to help fight cancer, a disease about which many of the people involved Tuesday know far too much.

Wright State coach Billy Donlon, Cincinnati coach Mick Cronin and Coles all lost their mothers to cancer. Delores, Coles’ wife of 47 years, has survived three separate battles with cancer. Cincinnati TV and radio personality Ken Broo – the emcee of the breakfast – lost his wife Jackie in August to breast cancer.

Along with the fund raising, the five head coaches answered questions for more than an hour from a panel of five media members and the crowd.

Broo wanted to know what the coaches thought of spinning a local tournament out of this breakfast.

“Five programs are represented today,” Broo said. “Would any of you like to see a sixth program added and turn this into a Southwest Ohio Basketball Classic played at the US Bank Arena, perhaps?”

As he saw the coaches shift in silence, he added some qualifiers: “Of course, Chris, you probably wouldn’t want to play Dayton. And UC probably wouldn’t want to play you … And Dayton probably wouldn’t want to play Wright State.”

Xavier’s Chris Mack started to laugh: “Well, then we could all play Miami – one after another. UC first, then Wright would play them second, Dayton third and we’d get them last…And it would all be on the same day.”

Donlon was asked about his dad – Bill Sr. a long-time college assistant coach and high school head coach – moving from Illinois and being added to his staff as Director of Basketball Operations.

“My dad lives with me now,” he said with a bit of a smile. “Even though it’s my house, it’s still his rules…And he’s single now and it’s scary. I’ve got to have a curfew for him.”

Following the laughs, he got a bit more serious. “Really it’s good. Considering what happened to our family (his mother’s death two years ago) being able to spend time together is great.”

Cronin – whose father, Hep, had more than 400 victories as a high school coach – said he was glad his dad was not in the crowd Tuesday:

“I haven’t told him that Billy Donlon’s dad is on the staff. My dad sits at practice every day drinking coffee. He asks why he isn’t entitled to some kind of stipend. Something to supplement his summers at Saratoga.”

Dayton coach Archie Miller was asked about the loss of senior co-captain Matt Kavanaugh, who was suspended from school for a year for what was said to be “violations of the University of Dayton Standards of Behavior and Code of Conduct.”

“I know Matt and his family are very disappointed. We’re disappointed, but we can’t do anything about it.”

He said there are “expectations” for all players and recruits who “have to know we mean what we say and say what we mean.”

As for replacements, he said: “Guys all want to have an opportunity. And one has been created right away for a lot of different guys. To see Jalen (Robinson) take advantage of that in particular this past Saturday in his first college game (he had 19 points and 10 rebounds in an exhibition against Findlay) was good to see He’s come a long, long way since August. He’s very talented, very gifted offensively.

“We’re watching kids roll with the punches, be resilient and respond. I kind of like our kids. I like the way they’ve approached it. They’re exited for the season and had a great mindset despite a tough week for us last week.”

Although Donlon has one of the younger teams in the nation and admitted his players have a lot to learn, he said, “Our guys can compete. We are more athletic than we’ve ever been.”

Mack – whose undermanned team just played Bob Huggins West Virginia squad in a closed scrimmage – said “so far I’ve like what I’ve seen in the preseason. We’re certainly are not very deep, but at the same time we have a couple of playmakers. We have a young backcourt and we just have to make sure we take care of the basketball.”

The coaches were asked if they’ve ever punished a poorly performing team by not letting the players eat after a game or had practiced them right afterward.

While all said they heard stories from the old days – and some experienced it themselves – they said there are now NCAA rules in place to prevent that and social media brings violators to light quickly.

“If you lose a game and don’t allow players to eat on the bus, pretty soon it’s on Twitter, ESPN is reporting it and you’re meeting with your athletics director,” Mack said. “The world is too politically correct. You don’t have Bobby Knight (days) anymore.”

He seemed a bit wistful and his recount had the other coaches smiling.

There were a lot of smiles Tuesday and that was easy to understand, Cronin said:

“Right now we’re all undefeated, so we’re great coaches. If you notice, everybody is patting us on the back. None of our boosters are avoiding us this morning. When we start losing games, that’s when it changes.

“But right now everything is good. We haven’t lost a game.”

And Miami – if you listen to Charlie Coles’ puckish pronouncement – should be rattling off nine wins pretty quickly.