Oregon Tech Coach Danny Miles Tabbed to Coach All-Star Game
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Renowned NAIA men’s basketball coaches Rocky Lamar and Danny Miles have been selected as the head coaches for the second annual 2015 NABC-NAIA Men’s Basketball All-Star Game. The event will occur Saturday, March 21 at Municipal Auditorium in Kansas City, Mo., in conjunction with the 78th annual Buffalo Funds-NAIA Division I Men's Basketball National Championship.
Lamar has been at the helm of MidAmerica Nazarene (Kan.) since 1986. The 1976 MidAmerica Nazarene graduate who has collected 673 wins, will coach the NAIA Division I All-Stars. Miles has tallied 1,017 victories so far in his 43-plus seasons at Oregon Tech, a NAIA Division II program – and will lead the All-Stars from Division II.
The All-Star Game will take place at 8 p.m. CST on Saturday, and will feature 10 players from NAIA Division I competing against 10 players from NAIA Division II. The game will be played as two 20-minute halves. The All-Star Game is the centerpiece of a day that includes the NABC-NAIA Slam Dunk and 3-Point Contests, presented by US Bank. To buy tickets, for as low as $5 for the entire day, click
here.
Miles, the winningest coach in all of NAIA, is currently in his 44
th season at the helm of Oregon Tech. With a career record of 1,017-425 (.705 winning percentage), Miles was the second-fastest and just the fourth men’s head coach at any level of college basketball to reach 1,000 career wins – with the other coaches being NCAA Division II McKendree’s (Ill.) Harry Statham, Philadelphia’s (Pa.) Herb Magee and NCAA Division I Duke’s (N.C.) Mike Krzyzewski. His 1,017 all-time wins ranks No. 2 in the men’s college basketball annals.
On July 14, 2014, he announced his retirement after the 2015-16 season. Miles has led his Hustlin’ Owls to three NAIA Division II national championship titles – most recently in 2012 – while also earning the banner in both 2004 and 2008. Miles’ 2012 squad finished the year with 34 wins, the most in program history, and from 2009-2012 earned an unprecedented four-straight Cascade Collegiate Conference (CCC) regular-season championships, along with four-straight CCC tournament crowns.
Oregon Tech holds the record for most wins at the NAIA Division II Men’s Basketball National Championship (33), and is tied with Bethel (Ind.) for most national banners (3). Miles has guided 17 men’s basketball teams to the national tournament. In addition to being named NAIA National Basketball Coach of the Year in 2004 and 2008, Miles was awarded the National Association of Basketball Coaches Coach of the Year in 2012, and was named the NAIA’s Champion of Character award winner for all sports in 2009. In March of 2001, the legendary head coach was inducted into the NAIA Hall of Fame in Point Lookout, Mo.
“It is a great honor to represent the NAIA as one of two coaches to be coaching in this game,” Miles said. “Coaching in the historic arena with the NAIA’s top players is very special.”
Lamar – a 2013-14 NAIA Hall of Fame inductee – coached at the high school level at Central City, Iowa, for three years and at Blakesburg, Iowa, for five years before returning to his alma mater. Before Lamar began his tenure at MidAmerica Nazarene, the Pioneers had just six winning seasons, three of them coming while he was playing for the Pioneers. The Pioneers had also never experienced a 20-win season. Now they have won at least 20 games in 21 of the last 23 seasons.
The MidAmerica Nazarene leader has coached 23 NAIA All-America honorees during his tenure, and has been tabbed Heart of America Athletic Conference Coach of the Year six times. Lamar also was the NAIA & KBCA Coach of the Year for the 2006-07 season, and KBCA Coach of the Year for the 2008-09 season. The Pioneers have won 12 conference championships, and have been to the national championship 18 times – six trips to the NAIA Fab Four – and a championship banner in 2007.
“I am thrilled to be coaching the best players in NAIA Division I,” Lamar said. “It is an honor to be selected to be the coach for this game. I feel the players at our level are truly young men who play the game because they love it. There are some who go on to play at the next level, but the majority of them know that this is the end of the line and they go out each night and give their all.”“I cannot wait to see how hard I can get them to play and how much fun we are going to have.”
To learn more about the 2015 NABC-NAIA Men’s Basketball All-Star Game, click
here.
The NABC-NAIA Men's Basketball All-Star Committee determined the selection criteria for the All-Star Game head coaches and oversaw the selection process. Criteria taken into account were each coach's impact on NAIA men's basketball and overall on-court success. The Committee is comprised of current men's basketball head coaches from both divisions of NAIA Basketball.