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

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.

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.

4. Steve Alford

Update: Alford is committed to staying at Nevada and will not be a candidate for the Indiana basketball job.

After a mostly disappointing tenure at UCLA, Alford has a 35-22 record over two seasons at Nevada. Including his time at SW Missouri State, Iowa, New Mexico and UCLA, he has a .651 winning percentage as a Division I head coach.

Alford was a victim of high and unrealistic expectations at UCLA. It would be much of the same at Indiana, with the added layer of Alford’s successful playing career as a Hoosier highlighted by a national title in 1987. He has oddly not been a hotly rumored candidate in the 20-plus years since Bobby Knight was fired, with the job coming open four times previously. The Indiana Star cited how Alford surfaced in 2017, but he was not seriously considered.

Alford is a candidate to take a step back up to a major conference job sometime in the next few years. What those options might look like this year, if he’d even entertain them in a broad sense, is unclear.

Does Indiana hold a special place for Alford? Would his ties to the alumni base and possible recruiting in-roads within the state of Indiana push him up the list of candidates to replace Miller? There are just enough questions to make Alford an intriguing candidate for Indiana, and some of those same questions lower the odds he gets the job to practically nil.

3. Brad Stevens

Now in his eighth season as coach of the Boston Celtics, Stevens lingers as a possible candidate for any big college job. He’s not necessarily on the hot seat in Boston, but with a 20-18 record entering Monday the Celtics have been a disappointment thus far.

Stevens is a Zionsville, Indiana native, and his dad played football at Indiana. His success at Butler, with back-to-back national title games in 2010 and 2011, keeps his profile and overall cache high in coaching circles. For whatever it’s worth, Stevens would be the No. 1 candidate to replace Miller for Indiana fans.

Even though the Celtics haven’t yet gotten over the hump in the playoffs, Stevens has had success in the NBA and he should have some options to stay in the pros if his tenure in Boston comes to an end. Indiana would also (presumably) have to wait for him until the Celtics’ season ends, likely after at least one playoff series. That timing is not ideal. But Stevens heading back to the college game to resurrect IU basketball can’t be ruled out just yet.

2. Chris Beard

Beard has turned Texas Tech into a powerhouse, with a 111-54 record over five seasons heading into the NCAA Tournament. The highlight of his tenure to this point, led by a strong defense and just enough offense, is a trip to the national title game in 2019. He has also shown strong recruiting ability, signing five players ranked in the top-50 of 247 Sports composite rankings over the last three years.

Before taking other jobs and circling back to be the head coach at Texas Tech, Beard was an assistant in Lubbock under Bobby Knight, then Pat Knight, from 2001-2011.

Beard only has a $3 million buyout at Texas Tech, provided he doesn’t leave for another school in Texas or another Big 12 school. Indiana of course fits that lower buyout bill, which might matter as they dole out $10 million to let Miller go.

The bigger question is whether Beard would consider leaving Texas Tech for Indiana. His current job is a better job right now and he’s well-compensated. Deep Texas roots, as a University of Texas alum to go with his coaching roots at Tech, also makes a move to Indiana unlikely on a surface level. But the search to replace Miller has to include Beard until he says no, and there’s a chance he says yes.

1. Scott Drew

Drew has the No. 2 team in the country, and one of the favorites to win the national title heading into the NCAA Tournament if you buy into ESPN’s BPI. In eighteen seasons at Baylor he has won 366 games and if we remove his first three seasons (21-53 record), as he rebuilt the troubled program, his record is even better-including 14 straight winning seasons (12 with at least 20 wins).

Drew played collegiately at Butler. He then coached under then succeeded his father as the head coach at Valparaiso, before leaving after one season to take on that tough rebuild in Waco.

In late-February, Pat Forde of Sports Illustrated pointed to Drew as the right guy to replace Miller at Indiana and actually restore the program.

"He’s not unhappy at Baylor, but Drew might be the big fish Indiana could land. Baylor has developed a good basketball following—for both the men’s and women’s programs—but Texas remains bedrock football country. If Drew wants one chance at a power program that prioritizes hoops, in a state he knows well, this could be it."

Getting down to brass tacks, Drew can have the Baylor job as long as he wants it. It will surely take a special opportunity to get him to leave (Duke? Kentucky?). Maybe Indiana is that special opportunity for him, back in his basketball home state. The search to replace Miller starts here.

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