Former Indiana Assistant Travis Steele Leading Miami of Ohio To Historic Season

Miami of Ohio is perhaps the best story of the 2025-26 college basketball season, and its coach, Travis Steele, has several Indiana ties.

A Danville, Ind. native, Steele began his coaching career at Ben Davis High School in Indianapolis while attending Butler University. He later became a video coordinator at Indiana in 2006 on Kelvin Sampson's staff, a role in which he broke down hours of film, putting together opponent and self-scouting reports for the Hoosiers.

“The thing that always sticks out about Indiana is just the passion that everybody around the program and the fans have for basketball,” Steele told Indiana Hoosiers On SI in 2022. “I always say in a lot of places it’s just basketball season, but it’s 365 days a year at Indiana University.”

When Sampson accepted a buyout and resigned as head coach amid allegations of NCAA recruiting violations involving improper telephone calls, Steele was promoted to assistant coach under interim head coach Dan Dakich. But he did not return to Indiana when Tom Crean was hired in 2008, instead joining Xavier's staff.

(Steele did an exclusive interview with Indiana Hoosiers On SI in 2022. To read that story, CLICK HERE.)

After nearly a decade as an assistant at Xavier, Steele became the Musketeers' head coach in 2018. But following four seasons with a 70-50 record and zero NCAA Tournament appearances, he was fired.

Steele has engineered an impressive rebuild at Miami of Ohio, which went below .500 in 14 of the previous 23 seasons prior to his arrival. It took some time, as Steele went 12-20 and 15-17 in his first two seasons.

But after a 25-9 season last year, the RedHawks completed an undefeated regular season and defeated SMU in the NCAA Tournament First Four on Wednesday night. Miami of Ohio's last 20-win season came in 1998-99, but Steele has surpassed that mark in back-to-back seasons.

Indiana played Miami of Ohio during the 2024-25 season, and it was a special experience for Steele to return to Assembly Hall despite the RedHawks' 76-57 loss.

“Growing up as a kid here in Indiana, man, is what you dream of, right? Indiana University, it’s God around here, right, so to speak,” Steele said during the postgame press conference. “So it’s awesome obviously. That’s what I told our guys, what a great opportunity to play at Assembly Hall, one of the most historic places in all of college basketball. Then obviously Indiana, you look at the five national championship banners up there, the tradition. I was fortunate to be able to work here for two years. I had a blast, learned a lot during those two years and always cheer for Indiana when we don’t play them. I didn’t cheer for ‘em tonight.”