Sean Miller

Sean Miller
Sport(s)	Basketball
Current position
Title	Head coach
Team	Arizona
Record	96–43 (.691)
Biographical details
Born	(1968-11-17) November 17, 1968 Ellwood City, Pennsylvania
Playing career
1987–1992	Pittsburgh
Position(s)	Point guard
Coaching career (HC unless noted)
1992–1993 1993–1995 1995–1996 1996–2001 2001–2004 2004–2009 2009–present	Wisconsin (GA) Miami (OH) (asst.) Pittsburgh (asst.) NC State (asst.) Xavier (asst.) Xavier Arizona
Head coaching record
Overall	216–90 (.706)
Accomplishments and honors
Awards A-10 Tournament Championship (2006) A-10 Regular Season Championship (2007, 2008, 2009) A-10 Coach of the Year (2008) Pac-10 John R. Wooden Coach of the Year (2011) Pac-10 Regular Season Championship (2011)

Sean Miller

Medal record
Men’s Basketball
Competitor for United States
Summer Universiade
Gold	1991 Sheffield	National team

Sean Miller (born November 17, 1968) is an American college basketball coach, and currently the head men's basketball coach at the University of Arizona.

Playing career

Early years

Miller was born in Ellwood City, Pennsylvania. The son of John Miller, a Pennsylvania high school basketball coach, Miller was a point guard 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 when he was fourteen years old. His ball handling skills were such that he was featured in the 1979 movie, "The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh," starring basketball star Julius Erving. In his junior year, he led Blackhawk to the 1986 Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic League (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.

Pittsburgh

Miller played at Pitt from 1987-1992. Despite being a natural freshman, he was the starting point guard. Some of his more famous teammates at the time include Charles Smith and Jerome Lane. Many of his teammates recall his knowledge of the game and his leadership qualities. His knowledge of the game allowed him to compete at this level, although he did not have the speed or athleticism of his peers. Jason Matthews, the shooting guard next to Miller, recalls he was the leader of the team, even as a freshman, and that the upperclassmen welcomed him as a leader. Because of his knowledge and leadership abilities, none of his teammates were surprised once he became a top coach in NCAA men's basketball. Miller's collegiate statistics are: 128 games played, 1,282 points, 10.0 points per game, 744 assists, 5.8 assists per game, 261 rebounds, 2.0 rebounds per game, and 102 steals.

Sean was on the all-Rookie team for the Big East. As of the 2009-2010 season, he was the No. 17 all-time scorer for Pitt, all-time best three-point shooter for Pitt, and had the third most Big East career assists. Furthermore, he ranked 10th among career Division I free throw shooters at .885.

Coaching career

Early Years

After graduating from Pitt with a degree in communications in 1992, he took a graduate assistant position at 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.

In 1996, Miller joined North Carolina State. In Miller's five years in 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 in 2001. This time he would join Thad Matta'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 each season. The 2004 season was especially notable. First, the Musketeers won the Atlantic 10 postseason tournament despite having to play four games to do so. Xavier then made a deep run in the subsequent NCAA tournament, finishing with the school's first-ever appearance in the Elite Eight.

Xavier

Taking over as head coach at Xavier after Matta moved on to Ohio State, 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, which had spent two years under interim head coaches in the wake of the illness and retirement of Hall of Fame coach Lute Olson. 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. Within three months of joining the program, Miller had already assembled a recruiting class ranked #12 in the nation by Scout.com. Miller led the Wildcats to a 16-15 record (10-8 in the Pacific-10 Conference) in his debut season. However, due to a lackluster non-conference record, the Wildcats missed postseason play for the first time in 25 years.

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 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.

Miller's recruiting has improved. From not being ranked in the top 25 recruiting classes by ESPN in 2010, Arizona's 2011 recruiting class was ranked 7th, notably signing Nick Johnson and Josiah Turner. For 2012, Arizona secured three players in the top nine of the ESPNU 100, with all four newly signed players within the top 36. This has cemented Arizona as the No. 1 signing class nationally, surpassing Kentucky who held the No. 1 spot 2010 and 2011.

Head coaching record

Season	Team	Overall	Conference	Standing	Postseason
Xavier (Atlantic Ten Conference) (2004–2009)
2004–2005	Xavier	17–12	10–6	T–2nd (West)
2005–2006	Xavier	21–11	8–8	T–7th	NCAA 1st Round
2006–2007	Xavier	25–9	13–3	T–1st	NCAA 2nd Round
2007–2008	Xavier	30–7	14–2	1st	NCAA Elite Eight
2008–2009	Xavier	27–8	12–4	1st	NCAA Sweet Sixteen
Xavier:		120–47 (.719)	55–22 (.714)
Arizona (Pacific-12 Conference) (2009–present)
2009–2010	Arizona	16–15	10–8	4th
2010–2011	Arizona	30–8	14–4	1st	NCAA Elite Eight
2011–2012	Arizona	23–12	12–6	4th	NIT 1st Round
2012–2013	Arizona	27–8	12–6	T–2nd	NCAA Sweet Sixteen
2013–2014	Arizona
Arizona:		96–43 (.691)	48–24 (.667)
Total:		216–90 (.706)
National champion         Conference regular season champion         Conference tournament champion       Conference regular season and conference tournament champion       Conference division champion

Notable Players Coached

Arizona

Derrick Williams (2009-2011)

Xavier

Derrick Brown (2005-2009)

Jordan Crawford (2008-2009)

External links

• Official University of Arizona bio