Coco and Kelly Miller are identical twins who have grown apart
only slightly in the 21 years since they were the same zygote.
Now freshmen at Georgia, they share a dorm room, wear their
ponytails the same length and dress from a communal closet,
cultivating an appearance so similar that their father, Marv,
can't always tell them apart. They even make the same grades,
all A's and one B cumulatively over four years at Mayo High in
Rochester, Minn., and an A and two B's in identical premed
classes in their first quarter at college. They're so close, in
fact, that they have never spent a night under different roofs.
The Millers each tallied 24 points in the Lady Bulldogs' season
opener against Boise State, and their scoring totals have either
matched or been within a basket of doing so in five other games
for Georgia, which was 10-4 and ranked No. 18 heading into
Wednesday's game with top-ranked Tennessee. Lanky 5'10" guards
who can touch the rim, the Millers rank among the SEC's top 10
in scoring (Coco at 19.1 points per game, Kelly at 17.9) and
assists (Kelly 6.1, Coco 4.7). Kelly also is in the SEC's top
five in free throw shooting (83.8%) and steals (2.6 per game).
On Dec. 6 Coco dropped 45 points on Charleston Southern to set a
Lady Bulldogs record.
The Minnesota twins complete a triple double for Georgia coach
Andy Landers: They are his third set of identical sisters in his
23 seasons of coaching. Over the years he has seen a dozen other
identical pairs play and can recall only one duo—Pam and Paula
McGee, All-Americas on two national title teams at USC in the
early 1980s—whose vast talents were as closely matched as the
Millers'.
For all their similarities, the Millers aren't duplicate
players. Coco, who plays on the wing, is the better defender,
while Kelly, the point guard, is a better passer. "Kelly is more
calculating," Landers says. "She'll go around you. Coco is going
to take it right over top of you if she has to." Still, their
games are interchangeable enough that in high school, they
switched jerseys for a practice, and their coach didn't notice.
The Millers earned starting spots on the Mayo High team as
eighth-graders and subsequently helped the Spartans win two
state crowns. As seniors, Kelly was ranked the No. 3 college
prospect in the country and Coco No. 11 by one recruiting
service, and they never considered splitting up. The fact that
last year's starting five at Georgia were all seniors and had to
be replaced was a definite plus. "We wanted someplace we'd be
able to play quite a bit as freshmen," Kelly says.
The Lady Bulldogs get 36 minutes of Miller time per twin per
game, thus it was odd for Coco to find herself sisterless on the
court for most of the second half of last Saturday's 81-70 win
over LSU. Kelly had picked up her fourth foul three minutes
after halftime and was on the bench. With little more than four
minutes to play, Landers reunited the twins. Kelly finished with
a flourish, canning two long jumpers on setups that define the
Millers' lives on and off the court: assists from a sister.
Issue date: January 19, 1998
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