The last undefeated team in men’s college basketball, one of those stories that only sports can deliver, is 100 miles east of Indianapolis, coached by the son of a pig farmer from Danville, Indiana. No. 23 Miami (Ohio) is that team, Travis Steele is that son, and the two had been barreling down on one another for the better part of 40 years.
This all started back in Danville, with a boy in a barn, a track star but an unremarkable basketball player who cannot stop thinking about basketball. His grandfather, Melvin Steele, had played in Danville’s legendary old gyms, Hargrave Hall and Bosstick Gym, and this kid – Travis Steele is the kid – decides he’ll play for Danville someday himself.
His earliest memory is IU basketball’s 1987 national championship game against Syracuse, a team he’d studied, an opponent whose center, 6-foot-11 Rony Seikaly, made him nervous. He was 5, scouting the Hoosiers’ opponent and dribbling on that barn’s dirt floor and shooting on a rim attached to the rafters. From there the story takes its share of twists and turns, building on a boyhood obsession and influenced by a childhood tragedy and featuring thrift-store shoes. Lots of cheap shoes.
It never should have happened this way, but again, that’s sports. Things happen that just … shouldn’t. Hey, that’s life too. There was a dismissal along the way that probably shouldn’t have happened, and a 20-gauge shotgun that definitely shouldn’t have been dropped. The crowds at Millett Hall in Oxford, Ohio, were never supposed to be this large. Or dressed like … that.
But the story just rolls along, adding chapters and fans and even a visit from ESPN – talk about things that just don’t happen – and along the way it turned a quiet, hardworking kid from Carmel, Peter Suder, into a folk hero.
The Miami RedHawks aren’t supposed to be here, nationally ranked and still undefeated as March approaches, but the same can be said of Travis Steele. And of Peter Suder, for that matter.
But sometimes, things happen. Things you don’t see coming.
Travis Steele started at Butler
Travis Steele has learned a thing or two about the coaching business, starting here:
Thad Matta’s shoe idea was terrible.
It was Matta, one of Steele’s earliest bosses – Butler’s coach in 2001 when Steele, a freshman, was a student-manager – who suggested the shoe gimmick. This was a few years later, after Matta had left Butler for Xavier in 2001 and Travis Steele had spent his final three years at Butler helping coach another team, Ben Davis High. A grinder, Travis Steele.
“Travis was a sponge,” says Indiana Hall of Fame coach Steve Witty, who won two state titles at Ben Davis, “and he’d do anything we needed – from film to coaching the JV to making sure the uniforms got laundered properly and the locker room was clean. He really wanted to coach.”
In 2004 Travis Steele was a college graduate, three years removed from his one season as a Butler student-manager. He’s looking to get into college coaching and calling Thad Matta for suggestions. And Matta, bless him, had a doozy: Send a shoe to coaches at schools across the Midwest, with a personal note attached.
On every shoe, Steele wrote this note:
I’m just trying to get my foot in the door…
His foot in the door – get it? Yeah, well. Cute idea and all.
“I went to the thrift store for the cheapest shoes I could find. I had no money – I needed to keep the shoes I had,” Steele says, chuckling at himself now. “I was just trying to find a way in. Looking at it now, if I received a shoe, I’d laugh: ‘Man, this guy is really trying.’”
Among the schools he sent a shoe more than 20 years ago: The one 100 miles to the east, and Miami coach Charlie Coles responded. Coles congratulated Steele on his passion, his drive, but said most coaches would value a reference – who do you know? – more than a gimmick.
So who did Steele know? And where did his work ethic come from, anyway?
The answer to both questions: An older brother.
But not the same brother.
Peter Suder shot goes viral
The shot by Peter Suder went viral. So did the celebration. This was Jan. 17 against Buffalo, and Miami was still undefeated, still unranked. A MAC team in a football state with a nonconference schedule ranked No. 277 in the country, the RedHawks needed a moment to grab the country’s attention, and Suder delivered it.
How did Suder, a Carmel state champion in 2019 and ’21 who started his college career at Bellarmine, get to Miami? That’s a story, but right now there are four seconds left in overtime against Buffalo and Suder, a 6-5 senior guard, is rising for a 3-pointer. It goes in, because this is that kind of story. The shot led ESPN’s “SportsCenter” that night, and the 2025-26 Miami RedHawks had gone national. Two days later they were ranked for the first time in 27 years, the first ranked MAC team in seven years.
No, this has not been easy.
But if you want to hear something difficult, hear how Travis Steele landed Peter Suder.
“Oh man,” Steele says. “This is wild.”
This is after the 2023-24 season, Steele’s second at Miami. His first team had gone 12-20, and Steele has a photo from his first game at Millett Hall, against Evansville, in his office.
“I don’t know the official attendance,” Steele says, “but there may have been 20 people here.”
His second team was 15-17, 9-9 in the MAC. Steele was building something, but he needed a spark, a centerpiece.
No, not Peter Suder.
This story is wild, remember? Like, it’s wild that a Division I coach is driving eight hours to see a recruit, but that was Steele in the spring of 2024, driving to a Sun Belt Conference school to see a guard in the transfer portal.
Steele picks up the story from here, talking as he talks, as he lives, as he coaches – short bursts of positive energy.
“The kid commits, I’m excited, told the staff, all excited, on the 8-hour drive back, all of a sudden, probably shouldn’t be doing this – maybe I’m scrolling through social media at a gas station – all of a sudden I see Peter Suder’s name hits the transfer portal,” Steele says. “I called Khristian Smith – he’s from Indianapolis, played at Pike – on our staff. I said, ‘Khristian, we can’t take this kid’s commitment that we just took.’
“He’s like, ‘What are you talking about?’
“I go: ‘Listen, Peter Suder’s in the portal.’”
Smith: “Man, that’s risky.”
Steele: “Listen, the only way to win big is you gotta bet big. I’m going to call this kid (at the Sun Belt school) and tell him we’re out. I want you to reach out to (Suder’s) people and see if we can get involved. I’ll drive there right now.”
Two years earlier Miami had played at Bellarmine in Louisville, Steele’s first season at Miami and Suder’s freshman year at Bellarmine.
“I loved Suder. I was obsessed,” Steele says. “So I called the (other) kid – man, that was hard – and told him we were out. We didn’t know if Peter was going to come. I had no idea. Hadn’t had a conversation with him.
“I’m still driving home when I get (Suder) on the phone. He’s studying for a test – ‘Coach, I don’t have time to meet’ – but this was the last day of the calendar (for coaches to visit). I go, ‘I will drive to Louisville now, to your doorstep, to make sure you know you’re my guy. I just cut a kid because of you. Don’t even know if we can get you, but I want you. You’re the guy.’
“Couldn’t get in front of him, brought him on campus a week-and-a-half later, he committed on his visit. I knew when we played at Bellarmine, he’s a winner. Won big at Carmel. Ryan Osborn (of Carmel) is a tremendous coach. Peter Suder’s a rock star. Rock star. He’s awesome.”
Why Travis Steele failed at Xavier
Looking back, Steele sees what he did wrong during his first shot as head coach. This was at Xavier from 2018-22, where he’d taken over for Louisville-bound Chris Mack after nine years on staff.
Steele thought he was ready. He’d coached at a high school in Indianapolis and a junior college in Illinois, served one-year apprenticeships for Matta at Butler and Ohio State, and even worked on Kelvin Sampson’s final IU basketball team as the Hoosiers’ video coordinator in 2008. Then he was a Xavier assistant for Sean Miller and Mack.
The Musketeers had reached 16 of the previous 18 NCAA tournaments when Steele replaced Mack. He wasn’t assembling, he knew, but sustaining. And that’s where he went wrong.
“At Xavier, the house was already built to an extent,” Steele says. “And it was a nice house – a great house. Maybe you want to put your own spin on it, change a room, paint a room. Never got to do it the way I wanted to do it, the way I wanted to build. That’s not a knock. It’s totally on me. It wasn’t anybody else. Already built, just not the exact way I wanted to build it.”
Steele went 70-50 in four years. Xavier didn’t reach the NCAA tournament but won 19 games in each of his three non-Covid seasons, and beat Cleveland State in the 2022 NIT opener. Late that night, after the victory, Steele was riding the Cintas Center elevator with athletic director Greg Christopher when Christopher said: “Hey, can you meet tomorrow morning?”
“I looked at him,” Steele says. “Like, sure, yeah – you want to meet now? He goes, ‘I’d rather meet tomorrow morning.’ I knew something was up. Weird interaction.
“I told (my wife) Amanda when I got home: ‘Listen, I think I’m going to get fired tomorrow morning.’ She was in shock.
“And listen: The standard is the standard. Xavier has high standards, and they should. I was blindsided, you’re always shocked – you don’t think it will be you – but I understand. And I understood. We never really lost at Xavier, but we didn’t win big enough. We were just a hair off. Totally understood it.”
A week later Miami fired coach Jack Owens, the former Purdue assistant. RedHawks AD David Sayler knew Steele – he’d interviewed Steele in 2018, before Steele replaced Mack – and hired him quickly.
“I knew exactly how I wanted this place to look, smell and feel, so everything I’ve done since Day 1 here has been very intentional,” Steele says. “Who we brought in as a staff, players, how we make those core values come to life.”
Miami doesn’t practice long, but the RedHawks go hard. For example, the “No Paint” drill. Defense wins if it keeps the ball out of the paint for 18 seconds.
“High hands every catch, have to be in a stance, have to jump to the ball – those are my three non-negotiables,” Steele says. “Maybe the ball didn’t touch the paint, but if you don’t get violent enough with your high hands, we’ll go again. We’ll stay in that drill for 20 minutes until we get it exactly right. And our guys know it’s on.”
This is where Peter Suder re-enters the chat, and not just because he averages 14.5 points, 4.7 rebounds and 4.3 assists.
“The standard is the standard, and Peter Suder helps sets that every day,” Steele says. “Every stinking day, man.”
No short cuts for this Miami team. No excuses either. Travis Steele learned that from his brother.
‘Never made an excuse’
There were young kids and a 20-gauge shotgun, and it fell to the ground.
“A hunting accident,” Travis Steele calls it.
“I don’t remember a lot – maybe that’s a blessing,” says Brandon Steele.
Who is Brandon Steele? He’s Travis’ older brother – well, one of his older brothers – and the best athlete in an athletic family. Their sister, Kim, was a Danville star in track and volleyball. Travis was a part-time starter in basketball but a star distance runner, one of the Sagamore Conference’s fastest in cross country and the 2-mile.
Another sibling – their oldest brother, John – was Danville’s career scoring leader in basketball, and led Central Indiana in 1989 in 3-point shooting at 52.5%.
That’s John Groce – same mother, different dad, older than Brandon and Travis by nearly a decade – now the coach at Akron. Yes, that John Groce. He and Travis Steele are brothers. Two coaches, same conference. Right? Akron beat Miami last season in the MAC championship game for a berth in the 2025 NCAA tournament. Right??
Steele, whose team beat Groce’s Zips on 76-73 to improve to 15-0 on Jan. 3, could face his brother again for the 2026 MAC tournament title. Miami is headed for the No. 1 seed, while Akron (20-5, 11-1) is alone in second place.
So many twists in this story, so much impossible.
“John’s a phenomenal coach,” Travis says. “He coached my AAU team when I was 12, helped me get on (as a student-manager with Thad Matta) at Butler, and then called Steve Witty at Ben Davis. Then he helped me get on at Ohio State as a (grad assistant in 2004) with Thad.”
Travis Steele pauses.
“John’s my idol,” he tells me.
Tell me about your other brother, I prod gently. Tell me about Brandon.
“John’s my coaching idol,” Travis says again. “But in a lot of ways, Brandon’s my hero.”
It was Thanksgiving Day, 1988, when that shotgun hit the ground and sent a shell into Brandon’s left leg, destroying his kneecap. Surgeons inserted steel pins to hold the leg together, which grew into a curve but couldn’t bend at the knee.
“He was the best athlete in our family by a mile. Not even close,” Travis says of Brandon, older by a year. “Heartbreaking for him when it happened, but he never used it as an excuse. He didn’t want people to feel bad for him. He worked so hard, lifting, everything man, it was amazing.”
Brandon Steele started on the Danville junior high basketball team, and played football in high school – catching a touchdown pass as a senior against Greencastle.
“He’s an engineer in Indy,” Travis says of Brandon, a cyclotron operator at Curium Pharma in Noblesville. “He’s an amazing story. Never made an excuse. Inspires me in a lot of ways.”
Travis has had Brandon work his basketball camps, and has followed his brother’s lead – both brothers’ leads – turning John’s connections and Brandon’s inspiration into a 25-year coaching career that started at Ben Davis and is reaching a crescendo 100 miles to the east. His third Miami team went 25-9 (14-4). His fourth team still hasn’t lost.
Before the country could notice, though, the community had to pay attention. Average attendance was less than 2,000 for their seven nonconference home games this season, but with the RedHawks beating everyone in their path – and leading the country in scoring (92.6 ppg) and shooting (53.6% from the floor) – they now play before record crowds at Millett Hall, a square, low-ceilinged arena with an official capacity of 9,200. Miami has wheeled portable bleachers close to the floor and squeezed in crowds of 10,640 for its last two home games.
For weeks the Miami men’s swimming and diving team has been attending games in their uniforms: Speedos, caps, goggles. They position themselves behind the opposing team’s basket, turning free throws into an R-rated spectacle and propelling this unthinkable Miami season toward the unimaginable. ESPN was at Millett Hall for the RedHawks’ 90-74 win Friday against Ohio in the Battle of the Bricks, and had Steele on its “College GameDay” show Saturday. Host Rece Davis asked Steele if he’d wear a Speedo on Selection Sunday, if Miami is still undefeated.
“Done,” Steele said. “It’s done.”
Things keep happening, things that probably shouldn’t, in Miami’s unlikely pursuit of perfection.
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This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Doyel: College basketball’s best story is 100 miles from Indy, led by a Danville man, Carmel grad
Reporting by Gregg Doyel, Indianapolis Star / Indianapolis Star
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