Tim Miles is out after seven seasons as a Nebraska basketball coach; Moos aspires to coherence | Men's Basketball

Tim Miles was never as high as it was this day in March 2014. The second-year head coach had managed the most unlikely race of the year. history of Nebrasketball, 122 years old.

The fact that he never reached these heights and that in reality has only come together once more in the five years that have passed since, sounded the knell of the affable old man of 52 years in Lincoln.

Miles was fired Tuesday, two days after Nebraska's defeat against TCU in the second round of the NIT. It was the end of a slow and sad march to the end of this season that began with the emotions of Husker fans who were rare in this region during the colder months of winter.

This is the first time in 24 years that the college coach has been fired from his position.

"Thank you to the University of Nebraska for this remarkable course," Miles said in a statement. "It has been a great honor to represent this university over the last seven years, and I am extremely proud of what we have accomplished during my tenure, including developing relationships with so many fantastic Huskers.

"Special thanks and deep gratitude to our players and parents who have accompanied and supported us over the years Thanks to our coaches, legends, alumni and all the support staff who have interacted daily with our program and experience that I will always cherish. "

Sources told Star Journal that Fred Hoiberg, former coach of the Iowa State and Chicago Bulls, should be named the next head coach. It is not known if a signed agreement is already in place.

"I am confident that the coaching community will show a keen interest in the opportunity to lead our men's basketball program," said Bill Moos Moos of Nebraska in a statement. "We are fully committed to providing the resources necessary to position our basketball program to succeed at the conference and national level. I'm looking forward to finding a head coach who will elevate Nebraska basketball to new heights. "

The purchase of Miles amounts to $ 2.52 million, or $ 105,000 per month remaining on his contract, which ends in March 2021.

This number would change if Miles is hired by another school. His contract includes a mitigation clause that would reduce UN payments based on Miles' contract with his new school.

Miles benefited from a one-year extension in April 2018 from Moos, after the Huskers lost 22-11 and 13-5 in the Big Ten.

At the time, Moos said he wanted to see the consistency of a program that has always been poor for most of its existence.

"Tim Miles is a good basketball coach who has put his heart, soul and energy into the Nebraska men's basketball program over the past seven years," Moos said in a statement. "In the end, we have not maintained a steady level of success and stability on the ground and, after a thorough review, I have made the decision to go in another direction to the direction of our program. "

The 2018-19 season has started well. Nebraska was 13-4 and beat Creighton for the first time in seven seasons. The Huskers looked like a team not only to compete in the NCAA tournament, but to become the first team to win the program once there.

Then everything sank. NU scored 3-11 to end the regular season, lost Isaac Copeland because of a torn ACL and, thanks to other injuries and suspensions, there were only six fellow players left and two passersby for the Big Ten tournament.

A year after finishing fourth in the Big Ten, Nebraska finished 13th. Then they rallied. The Huskers used a miraculous comeback to defeat Iowa in the regular season final, then beat Rutgers in Maryland at the Big Ten tournament before pushing Wisconsin to equalize closely.

Nebraska beat Butler in the first round of the NIT before sinking Sunday against TCU, 88-72, in Fort Worth, Texas.

Through all this, Miles has eloquently managed a delicate situation.

"I accepted running my race," he said at the Big Ten tournament.

Miles leaves Nebraska with the third highest number of wins among the 27 coaches who led the program. He is the only coach in the program's history to be named National Coach of the Year, earning him National Coach of the Year Jim Phelan after the 2013-14 season.

But overall, Miles was essentially a .500 coach during his seven seasons in Nebraska: 116-114. The Huskers are 52-76 in Big Ten and only twice in seven seasons, the Huskers have won more than six conference games.

There is also the question of where the Nebraska program was before it arrived.

Miles helped the Huskers win Big Ten records in 2013-14 and 2017-18, Nebraska's only two seasons to have a record league record since 1998-99: Danny Nee's penultimate season at Lincoln.

In 2017-18, the Huskers were excluded from the NCAA tournament despite their 13-13 and fourth place in the Big Ten – the first of these schools to receive this despicable distinction.

Despite his optimistic attitude and his relationships with fans and the community, Miles became the latest victim of a long series of unsuccessful coaching hires since the best days of the program in the 1990s.

Responsible for rebuilding a neglected program that did not reach the NCAA tournament under the leadership of Doc Sadler or Barry Collier, Miles infuses enthusiasm for fans with the help of the sparkling new Pinnacle Bank Arena and a multi-million dollar center of practice.

In a sense, he was the ideal coach at the right time for Nebraska – a tireless promoter of a program that finally had something to promote.

His sense of humor, his penchant for Nebraska's half-time tweets and his interactions with fans have allowed him to be an extremely popular character at the beginning of his tenure and to give the Huskers the kind of national show that rarely made the basketball program shine.

This did not detract from the fact that he was also able to capture the attention of a higher level player than Husker fans had ever seen.

Miles recruited two players from the first team, all Big Ten, for Lincoln: Terran Petteway and James Palmer. Petteway was the first choice of the team's first team for the conference in six seasons. He and Palmer are part of a group of five first-team Huskers over the past 25 years.

The alignment of this season was composed of Palmer; the first five-star rookie in the history of the Georgetown program transferred Copeland; and four-star rookies Glynn Watson, Isaiah Roby and Thomas Allen.

This training allowed Nebraska to record a 22-11 record and 13 wins in the Big Ten in 2017-18. He tied the second-highest number of wins in a season in the program's history. The 13 conference wins were a school record.

But he also encapsulated Lincoln's seven seasons of Miles.

With a chance to bolster the NCAA tournament's resumption potential at the end of the year, Nebraska lost 19 points to Michigan in the Big Ten tournament. Enough or not, the Huskers received a seed number 5 in the NIT and failed to break 60 points in a defeat at Mississippi State that ended the season.

This season has been marked by tough defeats in Kansas (one point at home), Creighton (a game with possession with less than two minutes to play) and Ohio State (with five points on the road). Nebraska finished 16-1 at home, but at 6-10 from Lincoln.

In Lincoln's seven-year-old Miles, his teams have lost 18 games or more four times, lost less than 13 once, and never lost less than 11.

There was of course a magic season.

Nebraska ended the 2013-14 season by winning 11 of its last 14 regular season games and qualifying for the first-ever NCAA tournament in 16 seasons, thanks in part to the No Sit Sunday victory.

Nebraska then lost their game in the quarter-finals at this year's Big Ten tournament against Ohio State, which earned them an 18-point lead in the second half. It was drilled by Baylor in the knockout stages of the NCAA tournament. Miles was sent off after scoring two goals. fouls. Still, the Huskers finished 19-13 and seemed to be ahead of the rebuilding front.

But the following season, with the majority of the return formation and a national pre-season No. 21 standings, the Huskers stammered at a 5-3 start that included a home defeat against Incarnate Word. Nebraska lost its last nine games and plunged to 13-18, the second-worst record in Miles' tenure.

The Defeat of the Incarnate Word was the first of three consecutive "buy-in" losses the Huskers had suffered against supposedly inferior opponents. In 2015, NU lost to double-digit Samford. In 2016, Gardner Webb signed a half-filled PBA on an extremely cold December afternoon and suffered a 70-62 loss to the Huskers.

Despite losing streaks and stunning defeats, fans have massed to watch. Since the inauguration of the PBA, Nebraska has been in the top 15 every year since it opened and has averaged more than 15,000 fans per game every season since it opened. The 2018-1920 season saw the UN set a record for average home attendance.

These fans will watch someone again wandering behind the scenes of next season.

This coach will probably not match Miles' charisma. It remains to be seen whether he wins or not more games.

The last sentence of Miles' statement on Tuesday was: "My family will always be thrilled for the Huskers and look forward to seeing #Nebrasketball write the story in the near future." GBR!