Sean Miller
Encyclopedia
Sean Miller is an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 college basketball
College basketball
College basketball most often refers to the USA basketball competitive governance structure established by the National Collegiate Athletic Association . Basketball in the NCAA is divided into three divisions: Division I, Division II and Division III....

 coach, and currently the head men's basketball coach at the University of Arizona
Arizona Wildcats men's basketball
The Arizona Wildcats basketball team is the intercollegiate men's basketball program representing the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona, United States. The team competes in the Pacific-12 Conference of NCAA Division I. They are currently coached by Sean Miller.Arizona has a long and rich...

.

Early years

The son of John Miller, a Pennsylvania high school basketball coach, Miller was a point guard
Point guard
Point guard , also called the play maker or "the ball-handler", is one of the standard positions in a regulation basketball game. A point guard has perhaps the most specialized role of any position – essentially, he is expected to run the team's offense by controlling the ball and making sure that...

 under his father at Blackhawk High School in Chippewa Township, Beaver County, Pennsylvania. He had developed considerable ballhandling skills before that time and appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson is a talk show hosted by Johnny Carson under the Tonight Show franchise from 1962 to 1992. It originally aired during late-night....

when he was fourteen years old.
In his junior year, he led Blackhawk to the 1986 Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic League
Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic League
The Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic League is an interscholastic athletic association in Western Pennsylvania. It is District 7 of the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association. The league is colloquially known as "WIP-ee-al"...

 (WPIAL) title. In his senior year, he averaged 27 points and 11 assists per game and helped lead his Blackhawk Cougars to the 1987 WPIAL championship game. After graduation, he chose to play basketball for Pittsburgh
University of Pittsburgh
The University of Pittsburgh, commonly referred to as Pitt, is a state-related research university located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded as Pittsburgh Academy in 1787 on what was then the American frontier, Pitt is one of the oldest continuously chartered institutions of...

.

Early Years

After graduating from Pitt with a degree in communications in 1992, he took a graduate assistant position at Wisconsin
Wisconsin Badgers men's basketball
The Wisconsin Badgers men's basketball team is a NCAA Division I college basketball team competing in the Big Ten Conference. Home games are played at the Kohl Center, located on the University of Wisconsin–Madison campus in Madison, Wisconsin....

. Miller spent two seasons at Miami-OH, during which the Redskins (now the RedHawks) made two postseason appearances. He then returned to his alma mater of Pittsburgh for a season as an assistant under Ralph Willard
Ralph Willard
Ralph Willard is the former men's head basketball coach at the College of the Holy Cross, a member of the NCAA Patriot League in Worcester, Massachusetts. He held this position from 1999 to 2009 and was the 14th head coach in the 88-year history of Holy Cross basketball. Willard was also an...

.

In 1996, Miller joined North Carolina State
NC State Wolfpack
The athletic teams of the North Carolina State University, known as the Wolfpack, compete in 24 intercollegiate varsity sports. NC State is a founding member of the Atlantic Coast Conference and has won eight national championships: two NCAA championships, two AIAW championships, and four titles...

. In Miller's five years in Raleigh
Raleigh, North Carolina
Raleigh is the capital and the second largest city in the state of North Carolina as well as the seat of Wake County. Raleigh is known as the "City of Oaks" for its many oak trees. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the city's 2010 population was 403,892, over an area of , making Raleigh...

, the Wolfpack made four postseason appearances, including a run into the 2000 NIT semifinals.

Miller's next move up the coaching ladder was a return to southwestern Ohio
Ohio
Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...

 in 2001. This time he would join Thad Matta
Thad Matta
Thad Matta is an American college basketball coach. He is the current head coach of the Ohio State Buckeyes men's basketball team. He was hired as the 13th head coach in Ohio State history on July 7, 2004 after the school had fired previous coach Jim O'Brien...

's staff at Xavier as the first associate head coach in the school's history. The Musketeers won 26 games in each of Miller's three seasons under Matta, making the NCAA tournament
NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship
The NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship is a single-elimination tournament held each spring in the United States, featuring 68 college basketball teams, to determine the national championship in the top tier of college basketball...

 each season. The 2004 season was especially notable. First, the Musketeers won the Atlantic 10
Atlantic Ten Conference
The Atlantic 10 Conference is a college athletic conference which operates mostly on the United States' eastern seaboard. It also has two member schools in Ohio: Dayton and Xavier, located in Dayton and Cincinnati, respectively. Another member, Saint Louis is located in St. Louis, Missouri...

 postseason tournament despite having to play four games to do so. Xavier then made a deep run in the subsequent NCAA tournament
2004 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament
The 2004 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament involved 65 schools playing in single-elimination play to determine the national champion of men's NCAA Division I college basketball. It began on March 16, 2004, and ended with the championship game on April 5 at the Alamodome in San Antonio,...

, finishing with the school's first-ever appearance in the Elite Eight
Elite Eight
The term Elite Eight, or less commonly called "Great Eight", refers to the final eight teams in the NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship or the NCAA Women's Division I Basketball Championship; and, thus, represents the national quarterfinals. In Division I, the Elite Eight consists of the...

.

Xavier

As head coach at Xavier, Miller took the Musketeers to four NCAA tournaments, in addition to winning three A-10 regular season championships and one conference tournament championship. In the 2008 NCAA tournament, the 3rd seeded Musketeers were eliminated in the Elite Eight by #1 seed UCLA, while in 2009, they were eliminated in the Sweet 16 by another #1 seed, Pittsburgh.

Arizona

After the tournament, Miller was announced to be a possible candidate for the vacant head coaching position at Arizona. He initially turned the job down before changing his mind and accepting the job on Apr. 6, 2009 despite having never visited the Arizona campus. He was succeeded at Xavier by former assistant Chris Mack
Chris Mack (basketball)
Chris Mack is an American college basketball coach, and the current head men's basketball coach at Xavier University. On April 15, 2009 it was announced that Mack would replace Sean Miller, who left Xavier to coach at the University of Arizona.-Background:Mack graduated in 1988 from St...

. Within three months of joining the program, Miller had already assembled a recruiting class ranked #12 in the nation by Scout.com
Scout.com
Scout.com is an integrated sports publishing company that produces both an Internet and print product. Scout has more than 2.1 million visitors...

. Miller led the Wildcats to a 16-15 record (10-8 in the Pacific 10 Conference) in his debut season.

In the 2010-2011 season Miller guided Arizona back to college basketball relevance. He led Arizona to its first top 10 ranking in the AP poll since January 8, 2007, and led the Wildcats to their first outright Pac-10 Regular Season Title (its 12th overall), 30-win season (4th overall), Elite Eight appearance (9th overall) and its highest coaches poll finish (9th) since the 2004-2005 season. Miller compiled a recruiting class that includes 4 ESPNU top 100 recruits (#4 by Scout.com) and is widely regarded as a top ten recruiting class. In addition, Miller led the Wildcats to their first unbeaten home record (17-0) in 14 years and was named Pac-10 Coach of the Year. This was the first time an Arizona coach received this honor since Lute Olson
Lute Olson
Robert Luther "Lute" Olson is a retired American men's basketball coach. He was most recently head coach at the University of Arizona for a period of 25 years. He was also head coach at the University of Iowa for 9 years and California State University, Long Beach for one season...

 did in 2003. The 17 wins without a loss at home is tied for the second most in school history and is part of a 19-game home streak beginning in the 2009-2010 season.

Head coaching record

Notable Players Coached

  • Derrick Williams (basketball)
    Derrick Williams (basketball)
    Derrick LeRon Williams , nicknamed D-Will, is an American professional basketball player for the Minnesota Timberwolves. He was considered one of the top prospects for the 2011 NBA Draft and was selected as the second overall pick by the Minnesota Timberwolves...

  • Derrick Brown
  • Jordan Crawford
    Jordan Crawford
    Jordan Lee Crawford is an American basketball player who currently plays for the Washington Wizards. He played collegiately at Indiana University and then Xavier University. His brother is Joe Crawford II, who has also played professional basketball...


External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK