After signing a 10-year, $341 million contract, Archie Miller quickly became Hoosiers….
Miller came to Kingston with a storied pedigree in the Atlantic 10. He won two conference titles and had four NCAA Championship appearances in six seasons at Dayton. With a record of 206-121 over the course of 10 seasons as a head coach with the Flyers and Indiana, Miller averaged more than 20 wins per year and had six national postseason appearances before arriving in Rhode Island.
Nationally ranked during three of his six seasons at Dayton, Miller won A-10 titles in 2016 and 2017, earning conference Coach of the Year honors in the latter. He led the Flyers to four straight NCAA appearances from 2014-17, including a run to the Elite 8 in 2014. Miller also reached the NIT with Dayton in 2012 and with Indiana in 2019, when the Hoosiers reached the quarterfinals.
Miller has six 20-win campaigns in his 10 years as a head coach and was a 2015 finalist for the Jim Phelan National Coach of the Year Award.
In four seasons at Indiana (2017-21) Miller had a record of 67-58. He made an immediate impact through recruiting, bringing nine Indiana natives in his first three classes, including Indiana Mr. Basketball winners Romeo Langford (2018), Trayce Jackson-Davis (2019) and Anthony Leal (2020). Langford and Jackson-Davis were named McDonald’s All-Americans and Khristian Lander earned All-American honors from MaxPreps in 2020. The 2020 recruiting class was ranked 13th in the country
In 2019-20, Miller led the Hoosiers to a 20-12 mark and was poised to return to the NCAA Tournament before the COVID-19 Pandemic hit. The Hoosiers also finished with a winning record against nationally ranked teams with five victories including wins over Florida State, Ohio State, Michigan State, Penn State and Iowa, which was tied for 7th most in the country. IU also improved to 26th in the country in adjusted defense according to KenPom. The team also posted a 3.398 grade point average in the spring semester.
IU also led the Big Ten in free throw attempts and defensive rebounding percentage. Freshman Trayce Jackson-Davis was named third team All-Big Ten by the coaches and media and also selected to the All-Freshman team and was just one of four freshman nationally to lead his team in scoring, rebounds, field goal percentage, free throws made and free throws attempted and blocked shots. In the Big Ten, Jackson-Davis was the top freshman scorer overall and led first-year players in field goal percentage and blocked shots.
In addition, Langford, who was a lottery pick by the Boston Celtics and Juwan Morgan who earned a contract with the Utah Jazz, both began their NBA careers.
In 2018-19, the Hoosiers earned their first national ranking under Miller and were rated as high as 21st in the country in early January. IU earned nationally ranked wins over Michigan State (twice), Marquette (Gavitt Games) and Wisconsin and notched triumphs against Louisville and Butler (Crossroads Classic).
IU finished with 19 wins and won two post season games in the NIT. Morgan and Langford would go on to earn All-Big Ten honors and Langford was named to the USBWA All-District team. Morgan would finish his career 24th on the IU all-time scoring list and also finished eighth in career blocks and 10th in career rebounds. The Hoosiers also improved to 32nd in adjusted defense after finishing 65th in 2017-18. IU also finished 36th in the country in blocked shots.
In his first season at IU, Miller saw the Hoosiers improve dramatically. After seeing IU allow 76 points per game on 45.9 percent shooting and 41.7 percent accuracy from 3-point range in the month of November, IU limited teams to 65.4 points on 41.3 percent shooting from the floor and 33.1 percent from long distance in the month of February.
He saw junior forward Juwan Morgan emerge as the most improved player in the Big Ten adding more than 10 points per game scoring in Big Ten play during the 2017-18 season. Morgan earned second-team All-Big Ten honors and was named All-District by the USBWA and NABC in 2018. Senior Rob Johnson averaged a career-best 14.0 points per game earned honorable mention All-Big-Ten honors his senior year.
Miller is a tireless recruiter, noted developer of talent, and a gifted tactician whose teams are known for their stout defense and efficient offense. His 2018 recruiting class at IU was ranked 7th in the nation after a successful haul of players from the Big Ten footprint.
A native of Beaver Falls, Pa., Miller spent six seasons as head coach at Dayton, where he won Atlantic 10 Conference regular season championships in 2016 and 2017.
He guided the Flyers to a 139-63 record (69.8) and a 68-34 mark (66.7) in the Atlantic 10. He took Dayton to the NCAA Tournament each of the last four years with the Flyers advancing to the Elite Eight in the 2014 Tournament. UD was nationally ranked in three of Miller’s six seasons (2013-14, 2014-15 and 2015-16).
During their elite eight run, UD topped Ohio State (60-59), Syracuse (55-53) and Stanford (82-72) before falling to Florida (62-52) in the regional finals. In 2015, they defeated Boise State (56-55) and Providence (66-53) and were eliminated by Oklahoma (72-66) in the Sweet Sixteen. In 2016, they were defeated by Final Four participant Syracuse (70-51) in the second round and by Wichita State (64-58) in their first tournament game this season.
Miller is one of five active coaches who had at least five NCAA wins in his first four seasons. The others are Mark Few, Thad Matta, Shaka Smart and Roy Williams. With three NCAA wins in 2014 and another two in 2015, Dayton was one of just six teams to have at least five NCAA tournament wins in those two years. The others were Arizona, UConn, Kentucky, Michigan State and Wisconsin.
For his efforts during the 2016-17 season, he was named Atlantic 10 and NABC District Coach of the Year. He led UD to perform at a championship level despite playing a 2016-17 campaign where the team’s top six scorers missed a total of 32 games during the year due to injury. He also was a finalist for the 2015 Jim Phelan National Coach of the Year Award.
He comes from a family of coaches with his father, John, having guided Archie and his brother Sean at Blackhawk High School in Beaver Falls. His brother Sean has been the head coach at the University of Arizona and also was the head coach at Xavier University. John was one of the country’s top high school coaches when he retired in 2005, with 657 wins in a 35-year coaching career. Archie, Sean and their sister Lisa all played Division I college basketball.
Miller is regarded as a top recruiter – Arizona’s 2011 recruits were a Top 10 class – and game strategist – he was the architect of the Wildcats upset of eighth-ranked Texas to get them to the Sweet 16. He was reunited with his brother during the summer of 2015 on the coaching staff of USA Basketball’s U19 World Championship. When Sean was elevated to the team’s head coach, he turned to his brother to help USA basketball win the gold at the 2015 FIBA U19 World Championship that was held June 27-July 5 in Heraklion, Crete, Greece.
He was a four-year letterwinner at North Carolina State from 1998-2002. A point guard, he is currently third at NC State in career FT% (.846, 165-195), sixth in career 3-pt. FG% (.429, 218-509), and fourth in career threes (218). As a senior, he helped lead the Wolfpack to the finals of the ACC championship game and was named to the all-tournament team. That season was coach Herb Sendek’s first NCAA team at NC State.
As an assistant, Miller coached in the Big Ten, Pac-12 and ACC, where he honed his craft under some of the most respected coaches in the country. He began his coaching career at NC State, serving as a coaching intern under Sendek in 2002-03. Miller then went to Western Kentucky as a full-time member of Darrin Horn’s staff for one season. He returned to NC State, first as Director of Basketball Operations (2004-05), and then as a full-time assistant coach (2005-06). When Sendek went to Arizona State in 2006-07, Miller remained on his coaching staff before joining Thad Matta at Ohio State for two seasons (2007-09). As a coach, he has been part of 20-plus win and NCAA seasons at NC State (2005-06), Ohio State (2008-09), Arizona (2010-11), and Dayton (2013-14, 2014-15, 2015-16 and 2016-17).
In April, 2015, he joined his father and brother in the Beaver County Sports Hall of Fame. Other greats in the Beaver County Hall include Mike Ditka, Tony Dorsett, Terry Francona, Pete and Press Maravich, Joe Namath, Babe Parilli and Norm Van Lier.
Miller earned his bachelor’s degree in Parks, Recreation and Tourism from NC State in 2002. He is married to the former Morgan Nicole Cruse and they have a daughter, Leah.