As Miami prepared for the season following a 25-win campaign, the RedHawks found themselves in a difficult position familiar to many rising mid-major programs.
They’re strong enough to be dangerous, but not strong enough to attract the type of marquee matchups power-conference teams seek.
The result was a months-long search for opponents that rarely produced answers.
Even other NCAA Division I coaches acknowledge the dynamic.
“We did not choose to play them,” said Chris Holtmann, head coach at DePaul, in an interview with Wake-Up Barstool. “Listen, they wanted to play — they called for us to schedule them. It’s hard to schedule at that level. We did not choose to play them as we’re rebuilding this program.
“So big-time respect for them. I also have tremendous respect for our league. I think our league is the fourth- or fifth-best league in the country most every year, and it can wear on you as well.”
The difficulty is not unique to Miami.
Across college basketball, scheduling often becomes a strategic exercise built around minimizing risk — particularly for high-major programs wary of damaging losses.
“There’s a lot of idiots out there that have no idea how scheduling works,” Wyoming coach Sundance Wicks said. “They’re all over Twitter saying, ‘Why don’t you guys do two-for-ones? Why don’t you just not take the buy-game money and go play at their place?’
“Why would you go play a game for free when they’re not returning it back to you? None of this stuff makes sense.”
For Miami’s staff, the process began rather earlier.
But three months into the offseason, RedHawks associate head coach Jonathan Holmes realized the program had entered a scheduling dead zone.
Miami was returning six of its top nine players from a team that finished 25-9 the previous season. It was a roster talented enough to threaten established programs but lacking the national reputation that attracts high-profile games.
Holmes first explored the typical route mid-major programs pursue — offer to play road games against power-conference opponents without expecting return visits to Oxford. The goal was to secure challenging matchups capable of boosting Miami’s national résumé.
The responses were discouraging.
Programs across the power conferences largely preferred either headline matchups against nationally ranked opponents or low-risk guarantee games against the bottom tier of Division I.
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
Even when Miami explored matchups with respected mid-major leagues such as the Atlantic 10 Conference and Mountain West Conference, interest remained limited.
“Scheduling is hard because nobody wants a blemish on their résumé versus a mid-major or a low-major,” Wicks said. “Not one team.”
Some programs saw little value in the matchup. Others lacked available dates. A handful that initially entertained the idea ultimately declined to finalize agreements.
By late summer, the search had become a frustrating cycle of unanswered calls and tentative conversations that never turned into signed contracts.
Holmes said, “it was around 85 teams that for one reason or another said no to a guarantee game with us.”
Miami had become exactly the type of opponent many programs preferred to avoid.
“As coaches, we’re paranoid,” Wicks said. “You’re paranoid to the Nth degree that you scheduled the wrong team. If you buy the wrong team and you lose, you’re going to get a Jon Rothstein tweet saying, ‘The epitome of brutality.’ Nobody wants to schedule a team like Miami, because they have a high level of retention.”
By early October, the RedHawks finalized a non-conference schedule built largely out of necessity rather than design — including multiple NAIA opponents and several of the lowest-ranked teams in Division I.
What appeared on paper to be a soft schedule was, in reality, the product of limited options.
The situation unfolded while Miami’s basketball program was undergoing a quiet transformation.
The RedHawks had not won an NCAA tournament game since 1999, when Wally Szczerbiak led the program to the Sweet 16. Their most recent NCAA tournament appearance came in 2007, followed by more than a decade of struggles that included 11 consecutive seasons without a winning record between 2009 and 2020.
Athletic director David Sayler believed the program needed a reset built around patience and long-term development.
That vision led him to Travis Steele.
Steele arrived in Oxford in 2022 after four seasons at Xavier. Rather than overhaul the roster through the transfer portal, Steele focused on identifying under-recruited high school prospects and developing them within a cohesive system built on continuity and chemistry.
Progress came gradually.
Miami finished 12-20 in Steele’s first season and 15-17 the following year before breaking through last season with a 25-9 record that ended just short of the NCAA tournament after a last-second loss to Akron in the Mid-American Conference championship game.
In the months that followed, the staff braced for the transfer portal.
Instead, the roster stayed largely intact.
First-team All-MAC guard Peter Suder announced he would return for another season, setting off a chain reaction. Freshman of the Year Brant Byers stayed. Starters Eian Elmer and Antwone Woolfolk returned. Key contributors Evan Ipsaro and Luke Skaljac remained as well.
The result was one of the most experienced rosters in the conference.
It was also the roster that made Miami so difficult to schedule.
“It takes a real confident, secure coach to schedule mid-majors,” Wicks said. “And with the way NIL is going, I don’t think anybody’s secure in their contract anymore. If they’re giving you enough money and expecting you to win, why would you take that risk?”
The challenge reflects a broader shift across college basketball.
The NCAA’s evaluation system — built around NET rankings and quadrant results — has reshaped scheduling strategy. High-major programs increasingly pursue two types of games: elite matchups that count as Quad 1 opportunities and low-risk guarantee games against the weakest teams in Division I.
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
Both offer clear benefits.
Wins against top opponents boost tournament seeding, while victories over the lowest-ranked teams help build records without risking damaging losses.
The most difficult opponents to schedule are those that fall in between.
Competitive mid-major programs capable of winning — but unlikely to provide résumé-defining victories — often find themselves stuck in what administrators describe as “scheduling limbo.”
Miami is a clear example.
The RedHawks celebrated history on Friday — beating Ohio 110-108 in overtime to solidify an unbeaten 31-0 regular season.
Yet Miami’s résumé remains under unusual scrutiny.
Half of its victories came against non-Division I opponents or teams ranked near the bottom of the national rankings. Its lone top-100 win is a narrow home victory over Akron, with an early-season road win against Wright State ranking among its best results.
Even so, Holtmann said Miami’s performance leaves little doubt about its legitimacy.
“Where they would finish? Good question,” Holtmann said. “I don’t know. I just know they’re a bona fide NCAA Tournament team.”
And still, the conversation surrounding Miami misses a larger point.
“Why do we get so upset when a team is 30-0?” Holtmann said early last week. “Why are we not celebrating the fact that there’s a one-bid league team that is 30-0 right now?
“It’s so hard, no matter who you play, to win that many games in a row. If nobody will schedule you and you still beat everybody, you beat the system.”
Historically, teams with two or fewer losses have never been excluded from the modern NCAA tournament era.
Miami’s schedule, often described as soft, was never designed that way.
Instead, it became the byproduct of a system that encourages caution, rewards risk avoidance and leaves ambitious mid-major programs searching for opponents willing to take the court.
And as a result, probably, the 31-0 RedHawks will have a few slots open on their schedule for next season.
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