CYPRESS LAKE, Fla. — Miami men’s basketball coach Travis Steele was greeted with cheers and a rowdy RedHawks locker room Monday afternoon.
Kam Craft and Peter Suder both had 18 points and Steele recorded his 100th career coaching victory with Miami’s 70-58 win against Siena in the Fort Myers Tipoff.
Steele, who recently turned 43 this month, became the 28th men’s basketball head coach in Miami history on March 31, 2022, after completing a four-year stint as the head coach at rival Xavier.
Steele posted a 70-50 mark with Xavier and led the Musketeers to two postseason berths. He is currently 30-39 at Miami.
In addition to recruiting two nationally-ranked classes among the top 20 as head coach, each of Steele’s student-athletes graduated during his time at Xavier. As an assistant at XU, he also helped secure two top 10 nationally-ranked recruiting classes, made four NCAA Tournament appearances — twice advancing to the Sweet 16 — and won a conference championship.
Steele has coached at the high school, AAU, junior college and Division I levels. He has held nearly every role on a staff — from volunteer, to graduate assistant, to assistant coach, to video coordinator, to director of operations to head coach.
Steele was hired as the director of basketball operations at Xavier in 2008 before being elevated to assistant coach in 2009 and then associate head coach in 2015, and ultimately, head coach in 2018.
Prior to Xavier, Steele worked on the staff at Indiana University. He joined the Hoosiers in August of 2006, taking on the duties of video coordinator. He also served as an assistant men’s basketball coach at Wabash Valley College (2005-06) and spent a year with the Ohio State basketball program as a graduate manager (2004-05) under Thad Matta.
From 2001-06, Steele was a coach for the Spiece/Indiana Adidas Elite AAU Basketball program. Steele also was an assistant varsity coach at Ben Davis High School while attending Butler University. He earned his undergraduate degree in business from Butler, where he graduated cum laude in marketing in 2004.
Steele, the brother of current University of Akron head coach John Groce, was born Nov. 12, 1981, in Danville, Indiana. He and his wife Amanda reside in Cincinnati with their children, Aspen, Winston and Anderson.
