Indiana Basketball: 5 candidates to replace Archie Miller as head coach
By Joey Loose
Following just four seasons, Archie Miller has been dismissed by Indiana Basketball as head coach. After playing point guard under Herb Sendek at NC State, Miller began his coaching career, which took him to several schools as an assistant coach.
Most notably, he spent time under Sendek at NC State and Arizona State, under brother Sean at Arizona, and under Thad Matta at Ohio State. Miller’s head coaching career began with a successful six-year stint at Dayton, a stint that included an Elite Eight run in 2014 and four straight NCAA Tournament bids.
Miller was brought to Bloomington in 2017 to take over the Hoosiers program from Tom Crean. Expectations at Indiana are sky high and Miller simply didn’t live up to those expectations during his tenure. He initially struggled to field a competitive team in the tough Big Ten and just never got things going during these four years. He brought talent to Indiana, but never finished higher than sixth in the conference, nor did he lead this team to the NCAA Tournament.
As members of the Big Ten, Indiana is an attractive coaching job, but it certainly lacks the luster that it once had. The expectations at Indiana are eternally sky high and sometimes those are just not possible to meet. It’s absolutely true that not making an NCAA Tournament in four years was just not acceptable for Miller, but if you’re expecting this team to suddenly turn back into the 1976 national championship squad, then you’ve got another thing coming.
The future can still be bright for the Hoosiers if they nail this hiring. The Miller hiring looked like a great idea four years ago, but you never quite know about these things until they play out. Whoever is brought to Bloomington will not only have to deal with the pressure of success but will have some pretty incredible resources at their disposal.
True, they will have to deal with a very tough and jam-packed Big Ten, but there’s no doubt that the history of this program makes this an attractive head coaching job for many candidates.
Without further ado, we’re going to start running through a few candidates for the head coaching job at Indiana. This is by no means a full list; just a few names to get the search going.