![\"UMass](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/260312-Eian-Elmer-ew-1239p-76094a.jpg\")
Eian Elmer of Miami attempts a shot against UMass on Jan. 27. Dylan Buell \/ Getty Images file<\/p>\nOver the last half-century, only a few handful Division 1 basketball teams have finished the regular season undefeated. The list includes some of the most memorable teams in the history of the sport \u2014 Larry Bird\u2019s 1979 Indiana State team, the 1991 Runnin\u2019 Rebels of UNLV and John Calipari\u2019s 2015 Kentucky team full of future NBA stars.<\/p>\n
This year, they were joined by … Miami (Ohio), a midsized public school in Oxford, tucked in the southwest corner of the state. The RedHawks play in the Mid-American Conference, with schools such as Bowling Green and Ball State. Their roster is not stocked with high-profile recruits or players with NBA upside.<\/p>\n
But Miami finished the regular season a perfect 31-0, jumped into the Top 25 rankings and became the talk of college basketball \u2014 until it stumbled Thursday in the MAC Tournament. The RedHawks lost to UMass, a middling team with a 17-16 record, blowing their chance at a guaranteed spot in the NCAA Tournament.<\/p>\n
On Sunday, the RedHawks had to watch the March Madness Selection Sunday show, like everyone else, to learn their fate. They ended up making the tournament as a No. 11 seed, but there was a catch. They have to play SMU on Wednesday night in one of the \u201cFirst Four\u201d games, to determine which of the two made the full field.<\/p>\n
In other words, despite Miami\u2019s historic regular season, it had been one of the last teams picked and had squeaked into the tournament. Such is the plight of the mid-major school in today\u2019s college basketball landscape. <\/p>\n
\u201cI felt we were in when we finished 31-0,\u201d David Sayler, Miami\u2019s athletic director, told NBC News. \u201cAt the end of the day, just being in is all that matters. Having a seat at the table.\u201d<\/p>\n
Eian Elmer of Miami attempts a shot against UMass on Jan. 27. Dylan Buell \/ Getty Images file<\/p>\n
Sayler tried to look at the positive. The SMU game will be played in Dayton, about an hour up the road. \u201cMy phone has not stopped buzzing for ticket requests,\u201d he said Sunday night.<\/p>\n
To Miami\u2019s students, alumni and boosters, it has been a Cinderella season, probably the best in school history. Miami made the Sweet Sixteen in 1999, powered by future NBA great Wally Szczerbiak. But over the next 25 years, the RedHawks made the tournament once, a first-round exit in 2007, and had been largely irrelevant.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were, like, 200 people\u201d for his first game at Miami in 2022, coach Travis Steele recalled. Official attendance was listed around 2,000, but Millett Hall, the team\u2019s arena, can hold 10,000 people. On the court, you could basically hear the person talking in row 15.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe atmosphere was the worst in our league, and I would tell you, it was probably the worst I\u2019ve seen in college basketball,\u201d Steele said. \u201cI mean, it was horrendous.\u201d <\/p>\n
Steele had spent the previous 14 years at Xavier, a Jesuit university known for its basketball prowess, less than an hour away from Oxford in Cincinnati. Steele worked there as an assistant when the Musketeers were fixtures in the Sweet Sixteen, and he was elevated to head coach in 2018.<\/p>\n
But Steele couldn\u2019t continue his predecessors\u2019 success. In four seasons, he went 70-50, never made the NCAA Tournament and was ultimately fired. \u201cYou\u2019re going through a lot of emotions \u2014 angry, sad, frustrated,\u201d Steele said. \u201cI had been there forever.\u201d<\/p>\n
Soon, Sayler, the Miami athletic director, reached out about its open job. The RedHawks had never really been consistent winners, but Steele was intrigued. At Xavier, he felt he couldn\u2019t really change the culture, how things had been done before. At Miami, Steele could \u201cknock down the house,\u201d he said, \u201cand build from scratch, build it exactly like I wanted to build it.\u201d<\/p>\n
In discussions with Sayler, Steele mapped out a plan. While other schools (with bigger budgets) recruited players in the transfer portal, he\u2019d focus on high school students, focus on coaching them up, getting them better and creating an environment in which they wouldn\u2019t want to transfer if bigger schools with bigger budgets came calling.<\/p>\n
\u201cI told him I think there\u2019s good enough players within a five-hour radius of Oxford in order to win championships and get this thing to the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament,\u201d Steele said. \u201cAnd I have the connections to do that in this region,\u201d from his time at Xavier.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought that was the right recipe for [Miami],\u201d he added. \u201cWhile everyone was zigging, we were zagging.\u201d<\/p>\n
By year three, last season, the RedHawks won 25 games, a school record at the time. In the MAC championship game, Miami led Akron by nine points with under nine minutes to play, only to slowly let the lead slip away. Akron ended up winning on a last-second push shot to secure the conference\u2019s only berth in March Madness.<\/p>\n
A few days later, Steele met with his players one by one. In today\u2019s college basketball landscape, players are threats to transfer every year. Steele needed to pitch them to stay and not leave for bigger schools.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ve got to figure out who\u2019s on the ship and who\u2019s not,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Like a scene out of \u201cRudy,\u201d one by one, the players told him they would stay \u2014 all of the RedHawks\u2019 top underclassmen except one who bolted for Georgia Tech and another to Kentucky. Most players decided to \u201crun it back again,\u201d said Brant Byers, a RedHawks guard, \u201cjust the way last year ended. … We got that close and just fell short.\u201d<\/p>\n
During offseason workouts, Steele noticed the players were putting in extra effort, had a chip on their shoulder. \u201cI basically had to tell these guys, listen, slow down a little bit,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019re diving on the floor for a loose ball in three-on-three in April.\u201d<\/p>\n
The RedHawks seemed poised for a great year; there was just one problem \u2014 nobody wanted to play them.<\/p>\n
Each March, the NCAA selection committee evaluates prospective at-large teams, the teams that won\u2019t get automatic bids, using advanced analytics that consider details like strength of schedule. In this system, Miami didn\u2019t have much standing. That meant if a bigger program played the RedHawks and won, it wouldn\u2019t help their r\u00e9sum\u00e9 that much in the eyes of the selection committee.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a lose-lose for them to play us,\u201d Steele said. \u201cIt\u2019s a numbers game.\u201d<\/p>\n
Miami reached out to more than 70 schools, trying to schedule games. Matt Brown, a journalist who covers sports on the website \u201cExtra Points,\u201d filed an open records request and obtained internal emails showing the length to which the RedHawks went. It turned out they had tried contacting some of the best teams in the country: Wisconsin, Michigan State, Ohio State, UCLA, Kansas, BYU, Florida, Illinois and Nebraska.<\/p>\n
Of all the requests, \u201chalf of them didn\u2019t even bother to respond,\u201d Sayler said. \u201cThe others responded with \u2018Sorry, we just can\u2019t work it out.\u2019 Then a couple of them, who they\u2019re good friends, would call and say, \u2018Sorry, dude, you guys are too good.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Steele typically leaves scheduling to one of his assistants. This time, he got involved. He reached out to friends in the sport, tried calling in favors, even resorted to begging.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was like, coach, play us!\u201d Steele said. \u201cWhy are you scared about us? You\u2019ve got 15 million [in NIL money] in your team. You\u2019re scared to play Miami?\u201d<\/p>\n
As one might expect, Miami\u2019s schedule this season wasn\u2019t very good. It included little-known schools like Indiana University East, Milligan and Trinity Christian. The analytics website Kenpom now ranks Miami\u2019s strength of schedule 269th in the country.<\/p>\n
The RedHawks went undefeated in the regular season thanks in large part to their balanced offensive attack. They have six players averaging more than 10 points per game and all six shot better than 34% from 3-point range. They score 90.7 points a game, the second-most in the nation. \u201cThe go-to guy for us is the open guy, not one specific player,\u201d Steele said, \u201cwhich makes us very hard to prepare for.\u201d<\/p>\n
At the start of the season, the RedHawks\u2019 home games were still sparsely attended. But as the season went on and the wins piled up, students and alums took notice. By February, Miami was selling out Millett Hall with 10,000-plus crowds. Szczerbiak and Ron Harper, another Miami legend, attended games. So did the Cleveland Browns\u2019 Myles Garrett and Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine. <\/p>\n
![\"Travis](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/2603115-travis-steele-ww-1647-f6886d.jpg\")
Travis Steele, the RedHawks’ head coach, at Rocket Arena in Cleveland.Frank Jansky \/ Icon Sportswire via Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cTickets were going for, like, $300 on StubHub,\u201d Steele said. \u201cLike, are you kidding me? At Miami? It\u2019s never been that way. Ever.\u201d<\/p>\n
But as the NCAA Tournament approached, critics started poking holes in Miami\u2019s r\u00e9sum\u00e9. The loudest might have been Bruce Pearl, the former coach-turned-TV commentator. Pearl said the RedHawks were \u201cnot built for the grind\u201d of a bigger conference, like the Big Ten or the Big East. He suggested they would make the NCAA Tournament only if they won their conference tournament for an automatic bid.<\/p>\n
To some, Pearl had a point. Even with a weak schedule, the RedHawks nearly lost several games. They had eight wins decided by three points or fewer. Their defense seemed vulnerable, too; they allowed 75.3 points per game, which ranked 220th in the country. Plus, Miami had lost its starting point guard, Evan Ipsaro, to a torn ACL in December.<\/p>\n
Amid some backlash, Pearl changed his tune. He interviewed Steele on TNT and said, \u201cI kind of feel like you\u2019re Cinderella and I\u2019m the ugly stepmother.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then Miami lost to UMass, and the RedHawks\u2019 magic moment lost some of its shine. Now they\u2019ll play SMU on Wednesday in Dayton, just to get the chance to play No. 6 seed Tennessee on Friday in Philadelphia. The Volunteers happen to be one of Pearl\u2019s former teams.<\/p>\n
In the meantime, Sayler, the athletic director, is trying to keep the good times rolling. He recently persuaded the school\u2019s Board of Trustees to approve $281 million for a new arena. He also offered Steele a contract extension that would tie him to the school for eight years.<\/p>\n
Steele hasn\u2019t reviewed the contract in detail yet. He will when the season ends. By January, agents and other schools had already begun contacting him, asking whether he had interest in higher-profile jobs. He figured his players were being contacted, too, and so he made a pact with them then \u201cto wait until the offseason to deal with stuff,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Steele knows how that looks, delaying signing the extension. But he points out that his wife has strong ties to the Cincinnati area, not far away, and the Steeles still live in the same house they did at Xavier. \u201cI would tell you we\u2019re very happy here at Miami,\u201d Steele said.<\/p>\n
Still, Sayler said he had to \u201calways be on alert\u201d that another school would poach his basketball coach or the players who changed the course of the program. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe system is just so tilted toward those schools with the big money,\u201d Sayler said. \u201cThey can schedule how they want. They can pick players how they want to come replace their other players. Then, at the end, when they don\u2019t think you measure up, they can say, \u2018Well, you don\u2019t have good enough metrics.\u2019 Well, that\u2019s because you didn\u2019t let us! You wouldn\u2019t play us.\u201d <\/p>\n
In his public comments recently, Sayler has been citing Yoda from the \u201cStar Wars\u201d franchise. He said it felt like Miami was \u201cfighting the Evil Empire,\u201d fighting for \u201cthe heart and soul of March Madness. It\u2019s Cinderella. It\u2019s great stories.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s why this team is so special,\u201d he added. \u201cIt\u2019s what college athletics is still supposed to be, even though people don\u2019t think it can happen anymore. It\u2019s happening in Oxford, Ohio.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Over the last half-century, only a few handful Division 1 basketball teams have finished the regular season undefeated.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":194758,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[123,125,124],"class_list":["post-194757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194757"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194757\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/194758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}