2012 BASKETBALL GUIDE
I N D I A N A D A I LY S T U D E N T | W E D N E S D AY, N O V. 1 4 , 2 0 1 2 | I D S N E W S . C O M
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IDS FILE PHOTO
Teammates watch from the sidelines as the Hoosiers lose 55-69 against Michigan State on Jan. 20, 2011, at Assembly Hall. IU completed the 2010-11 season with a record of 9-20 and the 2011-12 season 6-24.
Rock bottom
IU Coach Curt Miller’s 11-season tenure at Bowling Green State produced quite the resume, including
6 MAC Coach of the Year awards
Team looks for fresh start after a 6-24 record in 2011-12 season BY JOE POPELY jpopely@indiana.edu
A new beginning. A new era. A fresh start. A clean break. Call the 2012-13 IU women’s basketball season what you want as IU Coach Curt Miller ushers in a new brand of women’s basketball in Bloomington. But before a program can be rebuilt, it first has to implode. A coach who leads a mid-major
team to nine straight seasons of 20 or more wins, five conference titles and five NCAA Tournament appearances doesn’t just leave after turning a program into a perennial powerhouse. Something bad has to happen on the other end. Something historically bad. The 2011-12 IU women’s basketball season was just that. The team finished 6-24 overall and 1-16 in Big Ten play, opening the conference
slate with 14 consecutive losses before edging Wisconsin 62-60 on Feb. 23 in Assembly Hall. For the players, it was rock bottom. Now it’s time to use the lessons they learned during a painful season to make sure it never happens again. “It was hard to get past a lot of the losses,” senior forward Aulani Sinclair said. “But we just had to SEE BEGINNING, PAGE 11
New coach brings winning history, fiery passion to Assembly Hall BY ROBBY HOWARD robhowar@indiana.edu
IU Coach Curt Miller had been inside Assembly Hall before, but March 28 was different. This time he walked in, paused Curt Miller and took a moment just to look around. It was empty. It was quiet. He watched the National Championship banners dangle in the air just above his head, and he thought of the players and coaches who had competed on the floor. Suddenly he felt butterflies swirling around his stomach as his mind wandered into a daydream. It raced with visions of 17,000 Hoosier fans filling the red and blue seats, cheering a successful IU women’s basketball program. It hit him that, yes, this was his job now. This time when Miller walked into Assembly Hall, he walked in as the ninth head coach of the Hoosiers women’s basketball team, faced with the task of turning that daydream into a reality. For Miller, that opportunity is a dream come true. “As a basketball traditionalist or a basketball junkie, it’s pretty numbing when you really think about who’s played here and coached here and now you’re leading a team,” Miller said, “It’s a special opportunity. That’s why it was a dream job.” Being an Indiana coach has been Miller’s dream job since he started coaching girls’ basketball as
a senior in high school, he said. Long before he was a senior in high school, he was involved in competition. Miller grew up in Girard, Penn., as the youngest of three. His brother was six years older and his sister nine years older. The Millers bonded by participating in a range of sports — not just basketball — including competitive swimming. “You name the sport, we were involved with the sport growing up,” he said. What Miller lacked in age, experience and size in competition with his siblings, he made up for in energy and enthusiasm, he said. “I got picked on a little bit in that driveway,” Miller said. “I wanted to hang out with their friends. I wanted to play basketball. I wanted to play in the backyard football game, even though I was little.” Miller said this drive permeated throughout the 6,000-person community, where everybody knew everybody. “My hometown was crazy for basketball,” he said. “In third grade, in the ‘70s when a lot of communities were still not starting organized basketball until seventh or eighth grade, my community was starting competitive leagues in third grade. Everything we did sporting wise, we tried to be competitive.” But one area that wasn’t competitive was the seventh and eighth grade girls’ basketball team in Girard. No teacher took on the head coaching job in the mid ‘80s. So, they offered it to the high school senior Miller, who was
“Can you do it? When you look around an empty Assembly Hall, those feelings go through your head. You’re not human if they don’t.” Curt Miller, IU coach
gearing up to play his fourth and final season on the boy’s basketball team at Girard High School. “I jumped at the chance,” he said. “We had a good season, and I was hooked ever since then that I wanted to do that for my livelihood. I had the time of my life and really enjoyed it.” Being raised in that competitive community has built his reputation around coaching with intensity, Miller said. “It’s really driven me to this point,” he said. “It’s something that defines me. Everyone knows me as a fiery, passionate coach.” After graduating from BaldwinWallace with a bachelors degree in physical education and business administration in 1990, he set out on starting his women’s basketball coaching path. Miller began his collegiate coaching career as a volunteer assistant at Kent State, followed by stints as an assistant coach at both Cleveland State and Syracuse. After being an associate head coach at Colorado State for three years, Miller received a call in 2001 from Bowling Green State to be the head women’s basketball coach. SEE MILLER, PAGE 10
4 players with All-American honors
100%
graduation rate among his athletes who completed their eligibility
8 5 5
regular season MAC titles
MAC Tournament titles
NCAA Tournament appearances
Mid-American Conference record
135 wins 41 losses
Overall record 258 wins 92 losses
SOURCE IU ATHLETICS TROPHY - MATTHEW R. MILLER | THE NOUN PROJECT