Major – Mid Majors

(Indianapolis, IN) – Two elite-level ‘mid-major’ basketball teams will square off on Friday, when the Wichita State Shockers meet the Dayton Flyers. The tenth seeded Shockers (30-4) face seventh seeded Dayton (24-7) in a game that features two teams that are on a postseason streak.

Dayton, from the Atlantic 10 is participating in their fourth straight NCAA Tournament and the Shockers, from the Missouri Valley Conference, are playing in their sixth straight.

The two coaches, Archie Miller of Dayton and Wichita State’s Gregg Marshall have spectacular winning records and are annually being rumored to be on the proverbial ‘short list’ for other college programs in need of a coaching improvement.

Miller and Marshall both deal with the annual rumors. Miller says, he’s not involved in those rumors and Marshall says he pays attention to those issues, but no one has contacted him about any of the current jobs.

 

 

Marshall’s Wichita record (260-89) and Miller’s at Dayton (139-62) are exemplary and their demeanors are similar. Both are intense competitors and have lifted their ‘mid-major’ programs to major basketball status. Both win games against the power conferences, win NCAA Tournament games and have great respect for one another.

Miller’s older brother Sean is the head coach at Arizona and Wichita State knocked them out of the national championship last year. Archie says he was amazed at what the Shockers were able to do against the Wildcats last year, and he was inspired by WSU’s run to the 2013 Final Four.

Marshall says Miller has inspired him by all that the younger Miller brother has accomplished as a player and a coach.

 

 

These two hard-nosed and hard working coaches have built mid-major programs that are spoken of in the same paragraph with Gonzaga and few others, and apparently they are both staying put.

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