Miami head coach Travis Steele reacts after a Miami basket during overtime of an NCAA college basketball game against Kent State, Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2026, in Kent, Ohio. (AP Photo/David Dermer)
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On the morning of March 16, 2022, one day after Xavier’s men’s basketball team won a game in the National Invitation Tournament, the school fired coach Travis Steele. That afternoon, Steele flew with his wife and children to Naples, Fla. He wanted to get away, regroup, spend quality time with his family and contemplate what would come next.
Steele briefly considered taking a year off and perhaps getting into broadcasting, but that notion didn’t last long. He had been coaching since his days as an undergraduate at Butler in the early 2000s. It was in his blood.
Later that month, Steele was hired at Miami (Ohio), an opportunity that fit both from a professional and personal level. He could stay in his Cincinnati home, work for administrators he respected and continue as a Division I head coach, albeit for a mid-major program that had fallen on hard times.
Now, less than four years after the lowest point of his career, Steele has Miami off to the best start in program history.
The RedHawks are 20-0, the best record to start a season for any Mid-American Conference ever. They are one of only three Division I programs (along with Arizona and Nebraska) that remain undefeated. And they are No. 25 in the Associated Press poll, the first time they have been ranked since February 1999.
“If I could take the job interview that I did with Travis and videotape it and play it for you today, literally everything that he said he was going to do here he has done,” Miami athletics director David Sayler said. “Travis came in with a really good understanding of what the MAC is, where Miami was in that pecking order and how to elevate it to where it is today. He’s just delivered in every way.”
Steele Heads To Miami After Xavier Struggles
Even before accepting the Miami job, Steele was no stranger to the program or Sayler. In fact, Steele interviewed with Sayler for the Miami opening in 2017 after the school fired coach John Cooper. Steele at the time was 35 years old and the associate head coach at Xavier under Chris Mack. Miami ended up hiring veteran Purdue assistant Jack Owens, but Steele left a positive impression on Sayler, who kept an eye on Steele when he was at Xavier, which is only 35 miles from Miami’s campus.
When Mack left for Louisville in 2018, Xavier promoted Steele, who had never been a head coach. The Musketeers won 19 games in each of Steele’s first two seasons and went 13-8 in the shortened 2020-21 season. The next season, Xavier was 16-5 and No. 21 in the AP poll in early February before losing seven of its last nine regular season games and then falling to Butler in overtime in the first round of the 2022 Big East tournament.
Steele coached Xavier in its first round NIT victory over Cleveland State, but within hours of that outcome, the Musketeers decided to part ways with Steele, who never led the school to the NCAA tournament. A week later, Miami fired Owens, who had gone 70-83 in five seasons.
Steele was considering pursuing a job in the NBA or becoming an assistant at a major college program. But when the Miami opening occurred, Sayler contacted Steele to see how he was doing and if he would have interest in the job. Sayler also reached out to people he knew at Xavier.
“Everybody there that I spoke with just spoke glowingly of him as a leader and a person,” Sayler said. “That kind of verified to me how I felt about him.”
He added: “I just knew I needed a CEO-type mindset to lead it. I could kind of feel that the program was needing to adapt and change to a bit more of the modern world. I really felt strongly that Travis would be the kind of person that could lead that.”
Steele Experiences Ups And Downs At Miami
Still, Steele faced a challenging situation. Miami had finished above .500 just once (12-11 in 2020-21) in the previous 13 seasons and hadn’t made the NCAA tournament since 2007. During his interview with Sayler, Steele was honest and told him it would take time to build the program. Instead of relying on transfers, Steele wanted to recruit high school players who may take more time to develop but could become better long-term options. But Steele had some trying times when the RedHawks went 12-20 in his first season, including 6-12 in league games.
“Year one was long,” Steele said. “There were days where you felt like you were beating your head against the wall.”
In Steele’s second season, Miami improved to 15-17 and 9-9 in the MAC. The season ended with a first round loss in the conference tournament, but Steele said he lived by a quote that he still has above his desk: “be obsessed with the trajectory, not the result.”
“That’s so hard to do in this world we live in because it’s results-oriented, which I get,” Steele said. “Maybe people couldn’t necessarily see the result at that time. But I felt like we were doing the right things. And I always went back to, ‘I’m not deviating from this plan.’”
A year ago, the RedHawks had their breakthrough in Steele’s third season, just like he had told Sayler in his job interview. They won a school-record 25 games, finished second in the MAC during the regular season and advanced to the conference title game. They led No. 1 seed Akron by 12 points at halftime before losing 76-74 on a pull-up jumper from Akron’s Nate Johnson with two seconds remaining, denying Miami an automatic NCAA tournament berth.
“I just felt so bad for our guys,” Steele said. “I wanted it so bad for them to experience the NCAA tournament. I just really, really wanted it for them.”
Steele Retains Top Miami Players
Steele didn’t have much time to be disappointed, though, as the NCAA transfer portal was open and many Miami players were receiving interest from major programs. Two days later, he started meeting with his players, starting with Peter Suder, a 6-foot-5 guard and first team All-MAC selection who led the RedHawks with 13.7 points, 4.9 rebounds and 3.8 assists per game. Steele had spent the previous day writing down notes about Suder and other players, preparing for the conversations and expecting to have to sell them on staying at Miami.
“Peter says, ‘Hey, Coach, can I say something before we get started?,” Steele said. “I said, ‘Sure.’ And he said, ‘Coach, I’m not going anywhere. I love it here.’”
Three Miami players ended up transferring, including guard Kam Craft to Georgia Tech, center Reece Potter to Kentucky and guard Mekhi Cooper to Lindenwood. But five of the RedHawks’s top six scorers returned, including three starters in Suder and forwards Elan Elmer and Antwone Woolfolk.
The RedHawks have benefited from revenue sharing and Name, Image and Likeness deals, but Suder and others could have made much more money elsewhere. Instead, the players committed to Steele and his staff and each other. Soon after the Akron loss, Miami adopted a slogan on social media, #UnFinishedBusiness, as a source of motivation during the offseason.
“You could be upset about what happened last year,” Steele said. “I’m glad it happened, though, in some ways. It’s taught us some things that we got to get better at and to move forward.”
Miami Is Off To Best Start In MAC History
In the MAC’s preseason poll, the league’s coaches picked Miami to finish second behind Akron. But so far, the RedHawks are 8-0 in the league, including a 76-73 victory over Akron on Jan. 3. They have had other close calls, too. The past two games, they won in overtime over Buffalo and at Kent State.
Miami is winning even though its starting point guard, Evan Ipsaro, sustained a season-ending knee injury last month. Ipsaro, who was averaging 13.9 points per game and running the offense, remains around the team during practices and games and helps the coaching staff and players, who have continued to roll.
The RedHawks are second in Division 1 with 93.9 points per game and lead the nation with a 54% field goal percentage and 63.4% effective field goal percentage. Six players are averaging in double figures, led by forward Brant Byers (15.3 points per game on 51.9% shooting) and Suder (14.1 points per game on 57.6% shooting). Steele doesn’t have many set plays, but he has the team work on offensive concepts and stresses the importance of passing and movement.
“It’s all read and react,” Steele said. “Our guys are so unselfish. They make the extra pass, they cut for one another, they run for one another. They may not even get the ball and they’re running.”
He added: “I don’t even think we’ve been shooting it as well. If we start shooting the ball really, really well, that effective field goal percentage number’s going to absolutely
skyrocket.”
Despite Miami’s undefeated record, it is No. 51 in the NCAA’s NET metric that the selection committee uses to help determine at-large teams for the 68-team tournament. The RedHawks are also No. 76, No. 85 and No. 90, respectively, in rankings from analysts Bart Torvik, Evan Miyakawa and Ken Pomeroy. They are being penalized for their weak non-conference schedule, which KenPom ranked 362nd out of 365 Division I teams and included three games against Division II opponents. But Miami is No. 21 in the strength of record metric and No. 28 in the wins above bubble metric, both of which the NCAA selection committee uses in its evaluation of teams.
Steele admitted Miami wasn’t tested in non-league games, although it wasn’t by choice. Each year, he wants to schedule at least two games against major conference programs, which can bring in $180,000 of revenue because those teams pay Miami to play in their arenas. A year ago, for instance, Miami played at Michigan and at Indiana. But when Steele and his staff looked for games this season, top programs weren’t interested because Miami was coming off a 25-win season. It wasn’t worth the risk for them.
Power conference teams almost always schedule other major programs or small programs they can easily defeat, which the NCAA selection committee rewards. That left Miami in a tough spot. Steele and his staff spent months calling around to set up some intriguing matchups, but it didn’t work out.
“We had a line from Cincinnati to Oxford, Ohio to play us my first couple years,” Steele said. “Everybody was calling us to play us. And then all of a sudden people are like, ‘No, I can’t play you.’”
He added: “It’s totally understandable. I get it. I totally do. But I wish they would change the equation a little bit where it would help a team like us to be able to have some opportunities.”
Miami Strives For Sustained Success
As Miami’s streak continues, the RedHawks are beginning to attract more attention locally and nationally. More than 5,000 fans attended their home game last Saturday against Buffalo. They return to action Tuesday night against Massachusetts, which will be nationally televised on ESPNU at 9 p.m. And on Jan. 31, they face Northern Illinois in a game that is already sold out.
That day, Miami will award an honorary degree to Ron Harper, the program’s all-time leading scorer (2,377 points) and former longtime NBA player. Harper has been supportive of Miami, as have other ex-players, including Wally Szczerbiak, a current CBS and MSG analyst who scored 1,847 points at Miami before playing in the NBA for 10 years. Szczerbiak was the leading scorer on Miami’s team in 1999 that advanced to the NCAA tournament’s Sweet 16, the last time the RedHawks won a game in the event.
This year, Miami is favored to again make the NCAAs, although the RedHawks need to win the MAC tournament to secure an automatic berth. If Miami does finish the regular season undefeated or with one loss and then loses in the conference tournament, there is a chance it may get at-large NCAA berth, but that is not guaranteed. Steele, though, isn’t thinking like that.
“I’ve told our guys, and this is probably why we play so loose, I couldn’t care less about the streak of 20-0,” Steele said. “I just care if we’re getting better or not.”
While this season has been a revelation, Steele and Sayler said Miami is in position to have sustained success thanks to the financial resources, fan support and culture Steele and his staff have built. Steele signed a contract extension last January that runs through the 2031-32 season. While higher profile jobs could open, he said he is content at Miami and noted he would be thrilled if his children could attend school there when they get older. He is building a house in Cincinnati less than a mile from his current home.
Sayler noted that Steele has spoke about Miami becoming similar to Gonzaga, a mid-major program that is now among the nation’s elite. Miami isn’t considered close to the same tier as Gonzaga, which has made the NCAA tournament every year since 1999, been a No. 1 seed five times and had the same coach (Mark Few) for 27 seasons. Still, Sayler is setting his sights high and using Gonzaga as the model.
“I firmly believe that’s true,” Sayler said. “We want to give Travis all the support he needs to stay extremely competitive at the top end of the mid-major level in terms of rev share and NIL. I think we go all in on Travis, and I think Travis is all in about Miami. It can be a really great situation here for a long time to come.”