“I literally was having nightmares worrying about this giant we were going to face,” Travis Steele said Monday afternoon as he stood on the edge of the Millett Hall court after his Miami RedHawks had finished practice in preparation for Wednesday night’s First Four game against Southern Methodist University in a battle of No. 11 seeds at UD Arena.
So, the Miami head coach was admitting some of the fears he has as his team — 6.5 point underdogs — faces an SMU team that features 7-foot-2 Turkish center Samet Yiğitoğlu, the tallest player in the Atlantic Coast Conference, and senior point guard Boopie Miller, who averages 19.2 points per game.
No, not at all.
He was recalling the first NCAA Tournament game he ever followed.
“It was the 1987 national championship game when Indiana faced Syracuse and I was 5,” he said. “I was a huge Indiana fan.
“My mom has a picture back home somewhere from then. I was all decked out in my Indiana stuff and we watched on TV.”
Steele grew up in Danville, Indiana, which is an hour or so north of the IU campus in Bloomington.
His mom had told him Syracuse had “this big center,” her descriptor of 6-foot-10 Rony Seikaly.
“In my five-year-old mind, I saw him as this giant,” Steele said. “And they had Sherman Douglas (a 2,000 point scorer) at point guard.
“I was just so worried,” Steele said.
He might have had nightmares, but IU had Keith Smart, who hit a 16-foot jumper under pressure with five seconds left to give the Hoosiers the 74-73 victory in the Louisiana Superdome.
Although Steele doesn’t have Smart, he does have a bevy of players who can shoot. The RedHawks lead the nation in field goal percentage (52.4), are second in scoring offense (90.7 p.p.g.) and ninth in three-point accuracy (39.2.).
Miami, which went 31-0 in the regular season, became one of just five Division I teams this century to finish the regular season undefeated.
While they joined the ranks of the other unbeatens — Saint Joseph (2003-04), Wichita State (2013-14), Kentucky (2014-15) and Gonzaga (2020-21) — they also did not.
Those teams all got universal respect — mid-major Saint Joseph was a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament — but Miami has not.
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
While they have been the toast of Oxford; a Mid-American Conference team like no other — they have both the best start and longest win streak in MAC history — and they are a Cinderella story embraced by many across the nation; they also have been buffeted of late by detractors and deniers.
Their strength of schedule — 296th of the 365 teams in Division I basketball — their number of close games (eight decided by one possession or overtime) and the fact they played no Quad 1 games against top-tier teams and only two Tier 2 (Akron and Wright State) has had some people, especially outsiders looking in for the first time, branding them as anything from suspect to fraudulent.
Then came the MAC Tournament, where they were upset in their first game by No. 8 seed UMass, 87-83.
After two months in the Top 25 poll, Miami, which had been as high as No. 19 and still was No. 20, fell out when the latest rankings were released Monday.
That, along with the at-large bid they received — they’re the first MAC team to get an at-large bid since the 1999 Miami RedHawks led by Waly Szczerbiak made the Sweet 16 – while teams like Oklahoma and Auburn, who were left out of the tournament, drew criticism from some in the basketball world.
Such was the case during a recent Field of 68 podcast when former college standout Tyler Hansbrough (North Carolina and the NBA) said Miami should not have been included in the NCAA Tournament over Power 4 schools who have near break-even records but played tougher opponents.
Fellow podcaster Terrence “Toi” Oglesby, who played at Clemson and overseas, seemed to take special delight in deflating Miami, saying SMU is going “to beat the (expletive) out of them.”
The opinion of former bluebloods aside, many everyman fans — and certainly folks who don’t embrace hoops, but do like the David versus Goliath nature of the story — don’t like seeing a true team, not a bought and paid for one-season power grab, treated like a pinata.
That’s why I think most of Wednesday night’s crowd at UD Arena — which is just 50 miles from the Miami campus — will become the equivalent of Linus’s blanket from the Snoopy comics.
“I think it will be like a home game for us,” Steele said.
It was that way when Dayton (2015), Wright State (2022) and Xavier (last year) all won here in the First Four.
The one exception was in 2014 when Xavier lost to NC State, 74-59.
On the Musketeer staff was assistant coach Travis Steele, though he still remembers the full house crowd, the game-long enthusiasm and behind the scenes treatment of teams as the best experience he’s had in a dozen trips to the NCAA Tournament with Indiana and Xavier.
The big stage
Another point of distinction for Steele is the family connection.
He and John Groce, the coach of Akron, a No. 12 seed this year which plays Texas Tech on Friday, are brothers.
Another set is VCU head coach Phil Martelli Jr. and his brother Jimmy, the team’s associate head coach. Sunday they guided their Rams to a 70-62 victory over the Dayton Flyers in the Atlantic 10 title game, the victory sending them as an 11 seed against North Carolina on Thursday.
“In the past the Hurley brothers have been in the tournament, but this year there’s just one,” Steele said. “And in the past there’s been Archie and Sean Miller (who’ll be in Dayton as the Texas head coach.) There might be others this year, I just can’t think of any right now.”
Steele spent 13 years at Xavier, the last four as the head coach. Although he had four winning seasons – and went 70-50 overall — he was fired — during the 2020 NIT.
Xavier wanted to be in the NCAA Tournament and finish above .500 in the Big East, neither of which had happened with him.
Miami hired him soon after and in four seasons he has transformed a program that had one winning season in 11 years and no postseason appearances in 19 years into one of the most talked about teams in college basketball.
This year’s team was built on a core of gifted returning players, several freshmen and just one portal pick-up — Almar Atlason from Bradley.
The team resurrected the program, ignited the enthusiasm on campus and became the curiosity of college basketball, especially now as they take that David versus Goliath challenge to the big stage.
‘A basketball city’
Coaching at Xavier, Steele made several trips to play the Flyers at UD Arena. There was also that First Four game a dozen years ago and he said he’s often in town recruiting or speaking to some of the more than 8,400 Miami alums here.
“I’d argue that the atmosphere at Dayton is better than at any NCAA Tournament experience I’ve had and that includes taking teams to the Sweet Sixteen and the Elite Eight.
“A lot of places you might get sent — San Jose, Atlanta, Salt Lake City — the stands might be half full.
“UD Arena is always full. Dayton is a basketball city. It’s just a neat place. A really cool place. They love their hoops there.”
Steele has stressed that point to his team — he wants them to embrace the moment and have fun — but he said he also wants them to know this opportunity comes with responsibility:
“I’d say 99 percent of the teams that win are the ones who work the hardest and leave it all on the court. It’s about more than just talent.”
As you watched the RedHawks practice Monday, you couldn’t miss 6-foot-5 grad assistant coach Dan Luers trying to simulate the 7-foot-2 Yiğitoğlu by playing in the paint with long extended pads on his upraised arms. He looked like he had two jai alai cuestas on his hands.
Steele is trying to get his team ready for the challenge at hand. He wants them to make the most of their opportunity.
“I’ve reminded them there are players all across the country who are sitting at home wishing they were in your shoes.”
Speaking of shoes, here’s a story Steele once told me.
“Back in the day, I tried to get a job with Charlie Coles,” he said in reference to the late legend who was both a star player and iconic coach at Miami.
“I’m like 23 years old and he doesn’t know me from Adam, so I send him a shoe — a tennis shoe ― and I wrote a note with it.
“I said, ‘Listen, I’m trying to get my foot in the door. Dude, I know you don’t know me, but I feel like I can help you. I’ll work harder than any human being to help you.’
“And he was nice enough to call me back. We talked, though he didn’t end up hiring me.”
Two decades later, Steele got the Miami job without a gimmick and now has to be one of the most sought after coaches in the business.
Miami has offered him a considerable upgraded contract and he said he’ll consider all that after the season.
Right now, forget that tennis shoe he sent to Charlie.
He and his team are wearing their dancing shoes.
They’re in the Big Dance, a place for sweet dreams not nightmares.
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