A talented coach with exceptional NCAA Division I playing and coaching experience, Tony Miller returns for his second season with the Cal State LA program as an assistant coach.
Miller helped the Golden Eagles through a transitional season in his first year with the program. Cal State LA was ranked 14th in the country in scoring defense and finished with a 10-16 overall record and an 8-14 mark in conference play.
He came to Cal State LA from USC, where he spent four seasons following a 12-year international playing career. Miller was an assistant coach at USC beginning with the 2009-10 season when he was hired as the team’s strength and conditioning coach. He was promoted following that season and spent the next three years as an assistant coach on the staff of former USC head coach Kevin O’Neill.
Miller was also an assistant coach at St. John Bosco and helped the program to a Division 2 state championship, which was the first state title in the school’s history.
Before he joined the coaching ranks, Miller was an accomplished player. He enjoyed a 12-year playing career in Europe, playing for teams in Holland, Belgium, Lithuania and the United Kingdom. Miller was a Dutch League All-Star in 1998 and 2000 and helped lead Den Helder to the 1998 Dutch League title. He averaged 14.2 points, 9.6 assists and 3.6 steals per game while making 49.6 percent of his shots in the ’98 championship season.
Miller had a sensational four-year college career at Marquette and was inducted into the Marquette Athletics Hall of Fame in 2011. He set a Marquette single-season freshman record with 221 assists in his first year with the program and was a team captain his final three seasons. As a junior, he led Marquette into the Sweet 16 with a coast-to-coast drive against Kentucky’s full-court press. He scored 10.8 points and added 7.5 assists as a senior and led Marquette to a second-place finish in the 1995 NIT. He ranks eighth all-time in NCAA history with 956 career assists. He is the Marquette career leader in assists and still holds the single-game record with 17 against Memphis.
He was a football and basketball star at St. Joseph High in Ohio and was a high school football teammate of Desmond Howard and Elvis Grback. Miller was an all-conference quarterback as a junior and led St. Joseph’s to the 1990 state championships. As a senior, he led the school to the Ohio Division I state title in basketball.
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