Archie Miller Turned Down NC State Job Over Trust Issues

Archie Miller was recently introduced as the next head coach of the Indiana basketball program.
Miller made a name for himself coaching the Dayton Flyers to four straight tournament appearances, including a Sweet 16 appearance in 2014. As a young, hotshot coach, there were a number of places that Miller could have gone, but it appeared that North Carolina State was the likeliest destination.
Miller, a NC State alum, ultimately chose to go elsewhere due to the lack of stability and trust in the program, his father explained in a recent interview.
“Yeah, everyone thought NC State, but I knew that wasn’t gonna happen,” John Miller, Archie’s father, said in an interview with Tom Archdeacon of myDayton Daily News. “He knows that place too well. You gotta have trust in the people above you that they’ll stand by you.”
It wasn’t until Indiana officially announced it had hired Archie Miller that NC State announced that it would be hiring coach Kevin Keats from UNC-Wilmington.
For much of the time leading up to the announcement of Miller’s hiring, most signs were pointing towards UCLA coach Steve Alford as the top candidate to replace Tom Crean in Indiana.
Following UCLA’s loss in the Sweet 16, Alford definitively stated that he would not be leaving UCLA to take a job as head coach in Indiana.

“I sorta had to laugh at the media yesterday on TV,” John Miller said on Saturday. “It was Alford this and that. They had Steve Alford all plugged in to where he’s going next. Meanwhile, I was sittin’ there smiling and thinking, ‘Guess what fellas? You guys don’t know what you’re talking about,'” Miller said. “We know who that next guy is gonna be.”

In six years coaching at Dayton, the Flyers never suffered a losing season under Miller and made the tournament in four consecutive years going back to the 2012-14 season.
Prior to Miller arriving in Dayton, they had only made a tournament appearance four times in the previous 21 years.
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Photo Credit: Indiana Basketball/Twitter

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