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Indiana basketball: Brad Stevens and 5 realistic candidates to replace Archie Miller

By Brad Berreman

Mar 11, 2021; Indianapolis, Indiana, USA; Indiana Hoosiers head coach Archie Miller yells to his players in the game against the Rutgers Scarlet Knights in the first half at Lucas Oil Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Aaron Doster-USA TODAY Sports
Mar 11, 2021; Indianapolis, Indiana, USA; Indiana Hoosiers head coach Archie Miller yells to his players in the game against the Rutgers Scarlet Knights in the first half at Lucas Oil Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Aaron Doster-USA TODAY Sports /
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Archie Miller has been fired after four seasons, so here are five candidates to be the next Indiana basketball coach.

The Indiana Hoosiers may have made the 2020 NCAA Tournament, had there been one. But a 12-15 record this season increased the heat on coach Archie Miller. On Monday morning, as first reported by Stadium’s Jeff Goodman, Miller was fired.

Over four seasons in Bloomington, Miller had a 67-58 record with a 33-44 mark in Big Ten play and zero NCAA Tournament appearances.

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Indiana still has the feel of a marquee college basketball job and program, without the results to back it up. The Hoosiers haven’t won a Big Ten title since 1992-93, and they haven’t finished higher than fifth in the conference since 2007-08. Their last NCAA Tournament bid came in 2016. The best years of the Bobby Knight era are a distant memory now.

That said, the search to replace Miller will be telling. Will a coach who has had a lot of success elsewhere consider Indiana a destination job? How far down his list of candidates will athletic director Scott Dolson have to go? Miller came to Indiana on the heels of success at Dayton, which may create skepticism about mid-major candidates.

In any case, realistic or otherwise, the list of potential candidates for Indiana is topped by some marquee names with a longer list of possible candidates who may actually end up being the guy.

5 candidates to replace Archie Miller at Indiana

5. Calbert Cheaney

Cheaney was a star on Indiana’s last Final Four team (1992), and its last Big Ten champion (1993). He went on to play 13 NBA seasons, before eventually landing in coaching back at Indiana as director of basketball operations under Tom Crean in 2011. He moved to serve as an assistant at Saint Louis from 2013-2016, then he was an assistant for the Atlanta Hawks G League team from 2018-2020. He is in his first season as an assistant coach for the Indiana Pacers.

Cheaney has never been a head coach at any level. So that automatically decreases his odds of getting a head coaching job in the immediate future, let alone at his alma mater now. But if Indiana sees the success Juwan Howard has had at Michigan and somehow things they can replicate it, never say never here if the coaching search reaches that point.