Tim Miles (Nebraska Head Basketball Coach)

[FCollinsBuckeye]

Fort Collins Coloradoan reporting Time Miles to Nebraska. He'll be missed at Colorado State.

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Tim Miles said CSU did everything possible to try to convince him to stay but that the opportunity to coach basketball in the powerhouse Big Ten Conference was one he couldn't pass up.

"I'm going to be the coach at Nebraska," Miles said.

Nebraska officials scheduled a news conference this morning in Lincoln, Neb., to formally introduce Miles as their coach. He replaces Doc Sadler, who was fired March 9 after six seasons on the job. The Cornhuskers were 12-18 this season and 4-14 in the Big Ten, finishing in a tie with Penn State for last place in the 12-team conference.

"CSU bent over backwards financially - every way possible, whether it be budget or salary or whatever to make it right," Miles said. "And ultimately it came down to it's the Big Ten. There's nothing around better than the Big Ten, and I want a crack at it."

"We've been working really hard the past few days to keep Tim Miles here," Colorado State University athletic director Jack Graham said. "But the opportunity to coach in the Big Ten proved to be an opportunity that was too great for him to pass up."

Miles toured the Nebraska campus and basketball facilities Friday, including the new Hendricks Practice Facility, with athletic director Tom Osborne.

"They have a phenomenal setup," Miles said at the Fort Collins-Loveland airport after returning on a charter flight. At the time, he only said he had an offer to consider and still had to meet with Graham and university President Tony Frank.

ESPN's Andy Katz reported on the TV network's website that lawyers representing Miles and Nebraska were hammering out details of a five-year contract with a rollover for a sixth that would pay the coach $1.4 million a year for the first year, with an automatic increase of $75,000 each year thereafter.

Miles took Mayville (N.D.) State to the NAIA Division II Tournament in each of his two seasons as coach there and guided Southwest Minnesota State to the NCAA Division II Elite Eight in the last of his four seasons there. He then guided North Dakota State through its transition from an NCAA Division II to Division I program, leaving for CSU a year before the Bison reached the NCAA Tournament for the first time.

Miles signed a three-year contract extension last summer with CSU that boosted his salary to $585,000 this year and to $750,000 a year beginning July 1. Miles was offered that extension, which carries him through the 2015-16 season, by former athletic director Paul Kowalczyk, the athletic director who hired him away from North Dakota State in 2007. Kowalczyk was fired Dec. 1 by Frank and replaced by Graham.

CSU went 7-25 overall and 0-16 in the Mountain West Conference in Miles' first season as coach in 2007-08 and steadily improved each of the following four seasons. The Rams were 9-22 overall and 4-12 in the MW in 2008-09, 16-16 overall and 7-9 in the MW in 2009-10, 19-13 overall and 9-7 in 2010-11 and 20-12 overall and 8-6 in the MW this season.

Congrats to Coach Miles for getting a "crack" at the big time :)

 

[colobuck79]

Fort Collins Coloradoan reporting Time Miles to Nebraska. He'll be missed at Colorado State.

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Congrats to Coach Miles for getting a "crack" at the big time :)

I bet the Runzas sealed the deal. :)

 

[LitlBuck]

Never heard of the guy but that doesn't mean much. Just thought that the Nebraska would have gone after a bigger name coach. Recruiting in the B1G is a little bit different than recruiting in the Mountain West.

 

[Oh8ch]

I was hoping to see Nebraska make a bigger splash as well.

Of course, if you bring in a solid coach and do something with the talent at hand you can build the program over time. But this isn't the Big South or the Colonial. Miles could bring about dramatic improvement and still finish in the bottom half of the Big Ten.

 

[colobuck79]

He got CSU into the NCAA tourney. CSU. That pretty much guarantees that he is a good coach.

 

[Buck33Eye11]

Sad to see him leave, but welcome! :)

 

[DZ83CK]

If Miles is able to get the under the radar guys like it seems he has been able to at his prior coaching jobs, that will bode well for him at Nebraska. You're not going to get 5* recruits to Lincoln, but with their fan base and facilities, the right coach will be able to get guys who can help him build an NCAA tourney team. It will be interesting to see if he gets some guys from Colorado to play in the Big Ten - that seems like a natural connection for him to keep tapping, but I can't remember the last Colorado guy to play Big Ten basketball. I know there aren't a lot of college basketball players to come out of Colorado, but there have to be some good ones.