After practice, the Miami University men’s basketball coaching staff return to their offices at Millett Hall. Head coach Travis Steele sits at his desk. On the wall behind him hang the jerseys of Wally Szerbiak and Ira Newble, two former RedHawks who went on to play in the NBA.
In between the jerseys is a mural of the eight Miami players who went on to play professionally, including Ron Harper and Wayne Embry.
These players remind Steele, who is entering his third season at Miami, of the glory the program held in the 1990s and 2000s.
“I feel like our program had been dormant for a while,” Steele said. “Some of the young men we’re recruiting nowadays, they weren’t even born the last time we were in the NCAA tournament.”
Steele was born in Indiana, a state where basketball is a significant part of life. His grandmother fell in love with the sport and listened to every Indiana University Hoosier game. She lived with Steele, and her love for basketball bled through the rest of the family.
As the youngest of five siblings, Steele had several influences. His older brother, John Groce, currently serves as the head coach of the Akron University Zips, last year’s Mid-American Conference (MAC) champions.
When Groce was an assistant coach at North Carolina State from 1996-2000, Steele visited every summer. Seeing his brother in a coaching position was Steele’s first impression of collegiate basketball.
“In a lot of ways, [I] was kind of his shadow growing up,” Steele said. “When he would be coaching in the summers, I would go spend every summer with him and train with their players. I knew then I wanted to coach [and] be like him.”
Since 2001, Steele has coached at every level, but he hasn’t left the Midwest.
While attending Butler University, he assisted at Ben Davis High School 20 minutes away. After graduating, he joined Groce at The Ohio State University as a graduate assistant.
Many people in his shoes would have stayed at Ohio State and climbed the ladder, but Steele left after one year and assisted at Wabash Valley in the National Junior College Athletic Association.
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“You pop the popcorn, you do the laundry, you’re mopping the floors, you’re coaching the team: You do everything,” Steele said. “It was a great learning experience. The fear is as you go down to that level, you can never go back up. That’s why everybody told me not to do it.”
In 2006, Steele returned to the Big Ten as an assistant coach for the Hoosiers, the team he grew up watching. He helped head coach Kelvin Sampson lead Indiana to an NCAA tournament appearance in 2007.
He had bounced from program to program, spending no more than two years at any one school. Once he got to Xavier University in 2009, he settled for 15 years, eventually rising to head coach in 2018.
At Xavier and previously at Wabash Valley, Steele climbed the ranks slowly. Especially early on, he would find himself doing menial tasks rather than taking on large responsibilities with the team. However, these learning opportunities taught him to do the best he can at the position he is, rather than hope for more.
“Water the grass where your feet are,” Steele said. “Do so good at [your] responsibilities that people will recognize and give you more. How do you move up? You crush it where you are.”
The Musketeers reached the NCAA tournament eight times between 2010-18. A key part of Xavier’s success during this stretch was its recruitment strategy, which Steele played a large role in. In 2016, the Musketeers boasted a top six recruiting class, including Naji Marshall, a current Dallas Maverick.
Recruitment goes a long way for college basketball, especially now with the transfer portal. For Steele, having spent his entire career in the Midwest, building relationships with players is a huge part of his recruitment strategy.
“It’s all about trust,” Steele said. “It’s all about building relationships with coaches, with players, whoever it is. It is showing them how they can benefit from going to that specific university.”
Players say his experience coaching at one of the top programs in the country is a large draw for current players. Redshirt first-year wing Brant Byers joined the RedHawks this season because of Steele’s career at Xavier.
“It definitely is huge,” Byers said, “knowing that he’s coached at the highest level, it’s not like he’s inexperienced. He’s had experience at every level pretty much.”
Steele spent his last four years at Xavier as head coach before he was fired in 2022. The Musketeers hadn’t made a NCAA tournament appearance during Steele’s reign.
Not long after, Miami called him and brought him to Oxford.
The RedHawks posted one winning record since 2009, the last year they won a MAC championship. When Steele arrived, he was determined to mirror Miami’s success in the 2000s.
First, he needed to use his recruitment talent to convince players to play in Oxford. Byers described Steele as down-to-earth during his recruiting process.
“It was an energetic approach,” Byers said. “[He] was really optimistic, like, ‘We want to make Miami basketball good again.’ That was something that definitely drew me to it.”
Once Miami had its new players, they needed to be developed. Last year, the RedHawks started five first years, with Mekhi Cooper, Evan Ipsaro and Eian Elmer accumulating over 2,000 minutes between them.
Despite their first-round exit in the 2024 MAC tournament, the RedHawks can look forward to their five rising sophomores, as well as incoming transfers.
Previous coaches may have had different strategies, but Steele understands that now is the perfect opportunity for Miami to return to its 2000s-form.
“I don’t know if Miami caught the momentum when Wally was here,” Steele said. “[It] didn’t take advantage of the momentum it had at that moment in time. I think we are right now on that upward trend, and we’re going to take advantage of the momentum.”
Miami is 27-37 with Steele, but this season provides a chance for the RedHawks to shock the conference. When he looks at the jerseys and mural on the wall in his office, Steele understands that there is a rich history at Millett Hall, and the RedHawks need to rebound from their nearly 20-year slip.
“I don’t want to be a one-hit wonder,” Steele said. “I want to be able to create something sustained across the board [that] everybody can be proud of. We want to make the university proud.”
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