Miami basketball: Steele looks back on historic season during speech in Kettering

When he first spoke to the Agonis Club, Steele told members of his vision for Miami basketball, and it was the same plan he laid out for Miami Athletic Director David Sayler.

"I told him, 'The first two years are gonna be tough, but in Year 3, we'd have a chance to win a championship. In Year 4, we would be better. Year 5 would be better. Year 6 would be better."

That's how it has played out so far. Steele's program has improved its win total each season: from 12-20 to 15-17 to 25-9 to 32-2.

Steele is 84-48 in four seasons at Miami. In his first head coaching job at Xavier, he was 70-50 in four seasons.

"I think the Miami brand is what ultimately landed my family and I at Miami," Steele said. "We knew how strong it was. It's just like picking stocks. I love the stock market. We bought low.

"Miami had not been very good for quite some time — men's basketball-wise. It still was the all-time winningest program in the MAC. It just had not been done in a while."

Steele looks back fondly on his first Miami team, even though it won only 12 games.

"It was maybe one of the most fun years that I've had in college basketball," he said, "and it was because of the type of young men that I got to coach with our staff. We enjoyed the journey. I have this quote, which I used to keep it all the time in my wallet: 'Be obsessed with trajectory and not the result.'

"That was really difficult to do in Year 1 because I've never lost in my entire life, dating all the way back to when I was in pee-wee baseball. It was a long season."

Steele compared building the program to building a house, which he's doing right now in the literal sense. His wife gives him daily reports on the work being done on the house. One of the most important parts of any house is the foundation. It was the same for Steele at Miami.

"It takes a long time to get the culture right to where we can have sustained success," Steele said. "With the landscape in college athletics, it's harder than it's probably ever been."

The work Steele and his staff did in the first two seasons paid off with 57 victories in the past two seasons and culminated with a First Four victory against Southern Methodist at UD Arena in March.

"I've been a part of the Elite Eight and Sweet 16s," Steele said, "and this was the best environment in the NCAA tournament I've ever been a part of, and it's not even remotely close. It was awesome, and the crowd really propelled us.

"For the people who may not have seen our team play, they saw how fearless our guys are, and the confidence and connectivity that they play with. That's why our offensive numbers are so good. I think we do a pretty good job of coaching them and put them in positions where they can be successful, but the connectivity is real. We make that come to life with how we play on both ends of the floor."

Miami won an NCAA tournament game for the first time since 1999. In the second round, Miami ran into a No. 6 seed, Tennessee, that Steele thought should have been a No. 3 seed.

"We got off to a decent start," Steele said, "but man, we ran out of gas. I'll be honest with you, their physicality overwhelmed us. Give them credit. We didn't play well. They played really well. They shot really well, and they usually don't shoot very well, but they shot well against us. We fell short of our goal. My goal was for us to get to a Sweet 16 or Elite Eight level, and we fell short."