“We’re not a one-hit wonder, we’re not Milli Vanilli, though maybe they had two hits. I can’t really remember,” Miami RedHawks coach Travis Steele said Tuesday night after his No. 19 team held off Toledo, 74-72, at Millett Hall to up its record a nation’s-best 30-0 and win the program its first Mid-American Conference title in 21 years.
Although it’s been over two decades since the RedHawks claimed a seasonal championship, they had a stellar effort last season.
“We won 25 games last year,” Steele said. “We’re not Milli Vanilli.”
Although the German duo did have one hit — “Girl You Know It’s True” won a Grammy in 1990 — it turns out the pair was anything but true.
In a plan orchestrated by an unscrupulous producer, their vocals were sung by someone else. They just lip synced.
They were exposed when they were on stage and the tape stuck and kept repeating. They lost their Grammy and were painted as fraudulent.
Tuesday night Miami was on the big stage.
Millett Hall was sold out again — it was the fourth game in a row a Mardi Gras spirited crowd filled the old arena to the rafters — and the RedHawks gave their fans and themselves a night to remember.
It was the RedHawks 31st straight win at home — that ties them with Duke for the longest active winning streak in the nation now — and lifted Miami to 17-0 in the conference with one game left at Ohio University on Friday.
As soon as Tuesday’s game ended, the celebration began.
Senior guard Peter Suder, the RedHawks’ leader and likely the MAC Player of the Year, was handed the team’s championship trophy which he lofted over his head as the music cued and the confetti cannons turned the court into a celebratory red and white snowstorm that the players reveled in like they were kids.
Credit: JEREMY MILLER
Credit: JEREMY MILLER
They were joined by family members as Steele addressed the crowd — many of the 10,640 were still there — and congratulated them for making Millett the “toughest place to play in the MAC and one of the toughest in the nation.”
A ladder was brought out and players cut down the net on one basket. Several snipped off small pieces and wedged them behind their ears as they would a pencil.
Suder wore the remains of the net like a nylon necklace.
Miami has the most victories of any Division I team in the nation this season and became one of only 15 teams in the history of the NCAA to go 30-0.
Coming into Tuesday night’s game, the RedHawks led the nation in shooting percentage (52.7); were second in the nation in points per game (90); seventh in winning margin and eighth in three-point accuracy (39.2).
And yet, there were some critics in the hoops world who looked at them only through a lip sync lens.
‘I’d rather be us’
Bruce Pearl, the former coach turned CBS/TNT analyst, said, should the RedHawks not win next week’s MAC Tournament in Cleveland — and the automatic NCAA Tournament bid that comes with it — he doesn’t believe they deserve an at-large big to make the field.
The biggest point of contention is Miami’s non-conference schedule, which included three non-Division I schools and has been ranked 364th of 365 schools playing D-I basketball.
Pearl said he thought Miami couldn’t withstand the rigors of a Power 4 Conference:
“They’re not built for the grind of a Big Ten or even a Big East. In the Big East Conference this year, they’d finish in the lower half. They may not finish last. But I tell you what: I’m not so sure.”
Pearl suggested Auburn — where he was the head coach before he retired and where his son now leads the 16-14 team — should get an at-large bid over the RedHawks.
That broadside – along with the disparagement of Miami’s schedule by Bart Torvik, whose basketball analytics are considered by the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee and articles this week in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today debating Miami’s merits – hit a nerve with people would have seen the team play regularly and are familiar with its makeup.
Credit: JEREMY MILLER
Credit: JEREMY MILLER
No one flew to the RedHawks’ defense more than the school’s athletics director David Sayler, who threw a full-court press on Pearl.
“(You) are flat out wrong (about Miami) when you say we would finish last in the Big East,” Sayler posted Monday on X. “The disrespect is awful and (you) should not be near a TV studio covering this sport when (you) show your true colors. Even slipped in a ‘we’ when talking about Auburn. Nice work!”
Steele didn’t bring up the doubters until pressed on them halfway through his postgame comments to the press:
“I like Bruce, I do. Bruce is a great guy … Bruce is a way better coach than I’ll ever be. He’s a Hall of Fame coach. He’s won everywhere he’s been.
“But I could care less what he says. I’m not calling (coaches) to ask their opinion on our team, so why should I care what they are thinking about our team?”
The RedHawks players didn’t wade into the fray, at least not with pointed references.
“People are going to hate on us, they have the whole year,” said little used senior guard Eli Yofan. “And really that’s OK. It kind of fuels the fire.”
Freshman Trey Perry, who made the last-second layup that secured the victory over Western Michigan last Friday night, summed it up best.
Asked what he would tell Pearl if he had the chance, he thought a couple seconds then said: “Look we’re gonna keep doing Miami RedHawks. You do Bruce Pearl.”
Then with a smile, he added: “I’d rather be us.”
‘I lost my mind’
After yet another close victory — there now have been five two-point victories and three overtime wins as well, this season — the word that surfaced among players after Tuesday’s game was unflappable.
They said that’s what their coach calls them.
When that was brought up to Steele at the press conference, he agreed, but then confessed that at the Western Michigan game he had been anything but unflappable at halftime.
Worked up about a lot of things — officials calls, a malfunctioning scoreboard and his own team’s play — he came off the court on the way to the dressing room and knocked over the speakers belonging to the Western Michigan DJ Charles Welch.
Steele was given a $2,500 fine by the MAC for violating the league’s sportsmanship policy. He was also required to reimburse Welch who claimed $3,000 damage was done to his equipment.
Steele said he has squared things with Welch financially and also called him on Monday and apologized.
Making amends on the road was easier than facing the music at home Steele said.
He has no bigger supporter than his three-year-old daughter who picks out the t-shirts he wears to each game and then keeps an eye on her dad when he’s coaching.
“She was really upset with me after the last game,” he said. “She said, ‘Daddy, you were a bad boy last night.’
“I said ‘Yeah, I was, wasn’t I?’
Credit: JEREMY MILLER
Credit: JEREMY MILLER
“And she said, ‘You had big feelings.’
“We were talking in three-year-old language, right, but I understand she’s watching. I can’t do that again.
“I lost my mind. I just can’t do that.”
With his mind now right again, he said the task at hand is as simple as it is tough:
“We still have a lot of season left. We want to finish the season undefeated, so we’ve got to go into Ohio on Friday and play well there. Then we need to win three games at the MAC Tournament. Win that and you leave absolutely no doubt. There is no doubt just who we are.”
They would be a team who played on big feelings and got unprecedented big results.
Girl you know that’s true.
Not the Milli Vanilli version, the RedHawks’ rendition.
So hit it Chuck.
Crank up the music.
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