One era of Texas basketball came to an end on Sunday, and another appears ready to be started.
In the few hours after the Longhorns fired Rodney Terry, Texas is moving toward hiring Xavier basketball coach Sean Miller, according to several reports.
The news was first reported by Cedric Golden of the Austin American-Statesman.
Terry led the Longhorns to a 62-38 overall record and three NCAA appearances during his tenure, including an Elite Eight in 2023.
Miller has some familiarity with the Longhorns program, having just coached against Texas in the First Four of the tournament on Wednesday. Xavier won the game 86-80. He was also a rumored candidate for the Longhorns’ vacant head coaching spot two years ago, before Texas ultimately decided to remove Terry’s interim head coaching tags and make him the Longhorns’ full-time coach after an Elite Eight run.
The move to Texas marks a return to the Power Four level for Miller, who spent 12 seasons at Arizona between his two stints at Xavier. In three seasons during his second run at Xavier, Miller led the Musketeers to a 65-40 overall record with two NCAA and one NIT appearance.
Before returning to Xavier in 2022, Miller spent a year off from coaching after being fired by Arizona following the 2020-21 season. During his time with the Wildcats, the school self-imposed a one-year NCAA Tournament ban and were forced to forfeit all results for the 2016-17 and 2017-18 season as part of an NCAA probe that was triggered by FBI investigation into several prominent Division I schools. Miller was cleared of any wrongdoing by the NCAA in 2022.
An official announcement of Miller’s hiring at Texas has not come from the Longhorns at the time of this writing.
Sean Miller coaching history
Here’s a look at Miller’s coaching career:
Head coach unless otherwise specified. Assistant role listed in parentheses
- 1992-92: Wisconsin (assistant coach)
- 1993-95: Miami (Ohio) (assistant coach)
- 1995-96: Pittsburgh (assistant coach)
- 1996-2001: NC State (associate head coach)
- 2001-04: Xavier (associate head coach)
- 2004-09: Xavier
- 2009-2021: Arizona
- 2022-2025: Xavier
The USA TODAY app gets you to the heart of the news — fast. Download for award-winning coverage, crosswords, audio storytelling, the eNewspaper and more.