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\t\tMatt Miller, a longtime assistant with experience at multiple college programs, was hired in May as Lebanon Valley College\u2019s men\u2019s basketball head coach, taking over a team coming off a 7-18 season. (Provided photo)<\/p>\n
Miller arrives in Annville at a fraught time in LVC history. The Dutchmen were 7-18 last season and have gone 41-84 over the last five. Their last winning season came in \u201820-21, the COVID year, when they went 8-3. The last time they breached the .500 mark for a full season was \u201817-18, when they went 18-10.<\/p>\n
Miller has seen some hard times himself. He has served as an assistant on losing teams seven of the last eight seasons \u2013 five of those at Mount St. Mary\u2019s (under his friend and former college teammate, Dan Englestad), one at Loyola, Maryland (under Tavaras Hardy), and two at New Hampshire (under Nathan Davis, the former Bucknell coach).<\/p>\n
That came on the heels of a stretch in which Miller enjoyed great success as a head coach at two Maryland high schools. And way back when, at the beginning of a career now entering its 22nd year, he was part of a state championship-winning staff, at yet another Maryland school.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s seen the worst of the worst and some of the best of the best,\u201d said Kantrow, under whom Miller played and served as a student assistant at St. Mary\u2019s College of Maryland, over two decades ago. \u201cSo he\u2019s very capable of taking something that\u2019s not quite what it\u2019s supposed to be and making it something that is what it\u2019s supposed to be.\u201d<\/p>\n
When things go sideways for a program, Miller said, the accent needs to be on development \u2013 making sure each individual, not to mention the team as a whole, improves bit by bit, every blessed day. That will certainly be the focus at Lebanon Valley, which has several promising young players, but the task beforehand is building relationships. That\u2019s especially true in a situation like his \u2013 and goodness knows, he\u2019s been working at it \u2013 but given player mobility it applies to every coach, every season.<\/p>\n
The key, Miller said, is \u201creally helping (players) understand what\u2019s good for the program is also good for them. It\u2019s not like what\u2019s good for you and what\u2019s good for the program (are) separate entities. I mean, almost like a Venn diagram \u2013 like, here\u2019s what\u2019s good for the program. Here\u2019s what\u2019s good for you. Here\u2019s where we\u2019re meeting in the middle. And it\u2019s because you need them to play for you, and think about that season.\u201d<\/p>\n
Between seasons, yes, a coach and a player can huddle and discuss the arc of the young man\u2019s career. But every fall, Miller said, the goal is to get \u201ccomplete buy-in for that eight, nine months.\u201d<\/p>\n
Miller was sitting at the small desk in his office, the one overlooking the court within the Arnold Sports Center, as he said that. He had placed some books on a shelf behind him \u2013 both playbooks and books like Bill Simmons\u2019 \u201cThe Book of Basketball\u201d and Mark Kriegel\u2019s excellent Pete Maravich biography \u2013 but it was clear that moving in was an ongoing process. A large flat screen sat on the floor, still in the box, and on one wall Miller had hung a sign: \u201cEverything Is Possible\u201d \u2013 a gift from women\u2019s coach Julia Duggan, who just completed her first season at LVC.<\/p>\n
Certainly it seems like something is possible for the men\u2019s team. Three of Lebanon Valley\u2019s top five scorers from last season \u2013 guard Giovanni Sejuste (13.8), swingman Reed Melvin (11.6) and guard Demarcus Bandy (10.5) \u2013 were freshmen. A fourth, guard Jason Penn (10.3), was a sophomore.<\/p>\n
But the Dutchmen were not good at the dirty-work aspects of the game \u2013 defense and rebounding. And as Engelstad, now an assistant at Pepperdine, said, \u201cIf you don\u2019t do that, it will be hard for you to play for Matt.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/a>Not for the faint of heart<\/p>\n Miller acknowledged that his background is \u201creally lending to the defensive and rebounding side of the basketball.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSo,\u201d he added, \u201cthose will be key to us as we try to get off to a good start and try to get our guys overachieving early.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\tAfter building his coaching resume through a high school state title and Division I assistant stints, Matt Miller now faces the challenge of turning around Lebanon Valley\u2019s men\u2019s basketball program, which has posted a 41-84 record over five years. (Provided photo)<\/p>\n A native of Washington, D.C., Miller attended Gonzaga College High School, an institution whose alums include Pat Buchanan, the late political pundit, and Pat Conroy, the late author of books like \u201cThe Great Santini\u201d and \u201cThe Prince of Tides.\u201d More recently, the school has produced Kris Jenkins, hero of Villanova\u2019s 2016 national championship run, and New York Jets offensive tackle Olu Fashanu, who also played at Penn State.<\/p>\n Miller went on from there to St. Mary\u2019s, where Englestad was a teammate and Kantrow the coach his final two seasons \u2013 only the first of which Miller played. An ACL tear sustained the summer before his senior year transformed him into an undergrad assistant. And that, Kantrow said, is a tough deal, since Miller was trying to coach guys who had only recently been his teammates. There was no guarantee they would take him seriously, no certainty that he would be viewed in the correct light.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cBut he did a heckuva job,\u201d Kantrow said, \u201cand everybody responded to him.\u201d<\/p>\n Miller graduated in 2005 with degrees in economics and public policy, then took a job at the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But Englestad roped his buddy into helping him coach the summer-league team from Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda, and the following winter Miller joined Englestad as an assistant to Whitman varsity boss Chris Lun.<\/p>\n \u201cI caught myself spending all my time in my cubicle with the Bureau of Labor Statistics working on coaching schemes and drills,\u201d Miller said, \u201cand just understood that my calling was probably more in teaching and coaching.\u201d<\/p>\n His time was well-spent that \u201805-06 season; a defensive-minded Whitman team won a 4A state title, beating Roosevelt 39-38 in the championship game.<\/p>\n \u201cMatt,\u201d Englestad said, \u201cwas the architect of that defense.\u201d<\/p>\n Lun, still the coach at Whitman, agreed that Miller\u2019s impact was immediate.<\/p>\n \u201cThe kids instantly knew, just listening to him explain stuff, that he knew what he was talking about,\u201d he said. \u201cAs an assistant, that\u2019s important.\u201d<\/p>\n Thus bitten by the coaching bug, Miller moved on from his BLS job. He did graduate work while serving as an assistant at Marymount College in \u201806-07, then spent a season as the head coach at Wheaton High School in Silver Spring, Maryland, going 5-17. He wrapped a five-year run at Churchill High, in Potomac, and a four-year stint at St. Maria Goretti, in Hagerstown, around a single season as an assistant at Shepherd College, and it was in those two stops that he really began to establish himself. He went 79-41 at Churchill, 100-42 at Goretti.<\/p>\n Then he was reunited with Englestad at The Mount. And while there were struggles \u2013 the Mountaineers went 59-90 in the five years Miller was on the staff \u2013 Englestad believes the program was re-routed in the right direction. That was particularly evident when the Mountaineers went 12-11 and made the NCAA Tournament in \u201820-21, losing in the first round to Texas Southern.<\/p>\n The last three years have been even more challenging for Miller. Loyola went 7-25 the season he was there, while New Hampshire was 8-24 and 9-21 in the two seasons he spent on Davis\u2019 staff.<\/p>\n \u201cAs an assistant coach, when you\u2019re not getting the results that you want, you kind of feel that you\u2019re not contributing like you want to,\u201d Kantrow said. \u201cSo many things are going through your mind that may not be going through your head coach\u2019s mind, and some head coaches listen more than other head coaches do. It can really be a burden when you\u2019re having a bad season. It\u2019s not for the faint of heart.\u201d<\/p>\n Miller believes every experience has been valuable, no matter what the win-loss records turned out to be. From Davis he learned how important it is for the head man to delegate responsibility to his assistants. From Kantrow he had seen how the guy in charge can maximize a player\u2019s potential. And from Lun and Englestad he had learned, way back when, perhaps the most valuable lesson of all.<\/p>\n \u201cI realized,\u201d he said, \u201cI really like this. This is fun. This is great. You actually get to impact lives and help kids, help them graduate.\u201d<\/p>\n So now he\u2019s in Annville, his wife Nataly and young daughter in tow (with another child due in October). Now he\u2019s going to try once more to persevere, in the hope of proving that everything really is possible. Or that something is, anyway.<\/p>\n Questions about this story? Suggestions for a future LebTown article? Reach our newsroom using this contact form and we\u2019ll do our best to get back to you.<\/p>\n Support Lebanon County journalism.<\/p>\n Cancel anytime.<\/p>\n Still no paywall!<\/p>\n Fewer ads<\/p>\n Exclusive events and emails<\/p>\n All monthly benefits <\/p>\n Most popular option<\/p>\n Make a bigger impact<\/p>\n Join the 1,100+ readers who support our work as members<\/p>\n Already a member? Log in here to hide these messages<\/a><\/p>\n Local news is a public good\u2014like roads, parks, or schools, it benefits everyone. LebTown keeps Lebanon County informed, connected, and ready to participate. Support this community resource with a monthly<\/a> or annual<\/a> membership, or make a one-time contribution<\/a>. Cancel anytime.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brock Kantrow, a basketball guy through and through, was talking the other day about the life of a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":265351,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[32],"tags":[457,93],"class_list":["post-265350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-lebanon","tag-featuredsecondary","tag-lebanon"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/117161327156491636","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=265350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265350\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/265351"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=265350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=265350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=265350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/unh-pic-4.png\")
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