“I was just floored.”
The RedHawks lost that game and 19 more that year and finished 12-20.
Steele — who had just come from 14 seasons at Xavier, including the last four as head coach — inherited little when he took over the RedHawks program.
There was no winning culture. Miami had had just one winning season in the past 13 years.
The roster was short on talent.
And enthusiasm for RedHawks basketball — on campus, in the community and in the basketball world in general — was at a low point.
A guy who bubbles with passion and positivity and often uses pithy sayings that would fit on motivational posters, Steele promised a turn-around and said you’d see it by year three.
Few people on the outside gave his confidence much credence.
Yet, sure enough, in year two the RedHawks went 15-17.
And in that prophesied year three, Miami was 25-9 and finished three points away from making the NCAA Tournament.
The RedHawks lost the Mid-American Conference championship game last March to Akron, 76-74, on a Zips’ shot with two seconds left.
In a real snub, they then were overlooked for an NIT bid, although Kent State — who they beat three times in the season — was given an invite.
That overlook, tacked onto Steele’s forward thinking, has helped fuel this wondrous season so far.
The RedHawks are one of just six Division I schools who remain unbeaten this season and are on the cusp of a national ranking.
They rank among the nation’s leaders in several statistical categories.
Going into Saturday’s game they were first in D-I basketball in field goal percentage (54.6) and three-point accuracy (43.9 percent) and in the top 15 in four more categories: 3-pointers per game, scoring offense, scoring margin and free throw percentage
Before Saturday’s game, Steele said he called Mekhi Larry, who had been the one true stalwart of his first Miami team:
“He was a great kid … He was just a dog. A little 5-8 guard. He could score the ball. He was awesome.
“I told him he was a huge part of why we are this team today. He may not have gotten to enjoy the fruits of the labor, but he was a big part of the building blocks of our men’s program.”
Steele appreciates players who — even though the view from outside the program may be a little fuzzy — commit fully to his vision.
That’s why he’s so high on this team and players like Peter Suder, Antwone Woolfork, Eian Elmer, Brant Byers and Evan Ipsaro.
They all returned from last year’s tournament-slighted team.
Had Miami been more of a blue blood program that never would have happened, but those RedHawks players weren’t swayed to look elsewhere in these come-hither NIL times that are made more enticing thanks to the easy access transfer portal.
Three players from last year’s team did go elsewhere, though.
Kam Craft, the RedHawks’ second leading scorer, jumped to Georgia Tech, where he starts and averages 7 points a game, about half of what he did at Miami.
Mekhi Cooper went to Lindenwood where he starts and averages 6.5 ppg.
And 7-foot-1 Reece Potter left for Kentucky — he’s from Lexington — but has been redshirted. A source close to the program said he got $300,000 in NIL money to be a practice player there and sharpen the Wildcats’ big men.
Eian Elmer, a 6-foot-6 junior guard who returned and was one of the pillars of Miami’s victory Saturday with 19 points, eight rebounds and two blocked shots said he was not interested in a change of address or bank account before the season began.
“First off, the grass isn’t always greener,” he said as he stood at the edge of the court as a postgame autograph session with the Miami players and many of the 4,111 fans in attendance Saturday was winding down.
“For all the guys who came back, probably the simplest thing to understand is that we love it here.
“Getting to play for Miami and with the coaches who are here and now that we’re having the success that we are, it’s a feeling money can’t get you.
“When I first came here out of high school (Taft Information Technology High School in Covington, Kentucky), nobody else thought we could do what we’ve done. And coming into this game today we had doubters.
“To prove them wrong is the best feeling you can have.”
Brant Byers, the 6-foot-8 sophomore guard who led the RedHawks with 26 points Saturday, agreed with Elmer:
“We had something to prove the way last year ended. Plus, there’s a ton of positive things about our program and the university here.
“We definitely had some conversations (after last season), but then Peter (Suder) led the charge when he said he was coming back. That played a big part in the decisions, knowing you could play with guys you did the year before. That added to our confidence that this would be a good year.”
The one negative to date came five days before Christmas — at the MAC opener at Ball State – when Ipsaro tore his ACL and was lost for the year.
Sophomore Luke Skaljac has taken over the job superbly and Saturday there was Ipsaro, sitting side saddle at the end of the bench with his heavily braced leg resting on two chairs.
At times he was coaching harder than Steele, which is quite a feat.
And while the coach got a technical because he was blistering the ear of a ref in the first half, Ipsaro was simply in the ears of fellow guards Skaljac and freshman Trey Perry.
As Steele noted: “He’s going to be a great coach some day.”
It’s the veteran players on the roster — guys like Ipsaro, Elmer, Woolfork and Suder — who have fortified the culture of the program and now pass it on to the new faces, whether it’s the several freshmen on the roster or portal pickup Almar Atlason, who’s originally from Iceland and played at Bradley.
Miami is a rarity in college basketball these days.
Atlason is the only transfer this season. The RedHawks held onto most of their key players and Steele and his staff added six freshmen.
Saturday’s game was the shining moment so far in a season that has had several.
As Steele said, Akron — which is coached by his brother, John Groce — has been “the gold standard’ in the league for the past few years.
In what he described as an “ugly ... physical game,” but also a “great college basketball game” — there were 14 lead changes — each time one team started to inch ahead, the other reeled it in.
While Akron (10-4) dominated the paint (outscoring Miami 38-18) and had a 27-0 advantage in bench points, the RedHawks made 11 threes compared to the Zips’ eight and sank 25 of 30 free throws. Akron made 9 of 10 at the line.
“I know a lot of people had us not winning this game,” Brant said. “We always believed we were the better team and were going to win it.
“To be down and come back like that just proved to a lot of people – and ourselves – that we are who we believed we are.”
The victory was Miami’s 23rd straight at Millett Hall. That ties the record set between 1996 and 1998.
The RedHawks could break that when they host Western Michigan, Tuesday night.
“Making history like this is worth more than any amount of money you could get,” Elmer said. “What we’re doing now, nobody can ever take away from us.”
As he turned to head to the dressing room, an older couple stopped him and asked if they could take a picture of him with the Millett Hall court and many of his teammates behind him.
He agreed.
And you knew this picture would tell a story, as well.
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