I’ve spent years cheering from the sidelines — not of basketball games, but of other people’s fandoms. My husband went to Butler, and I’ll admit, watching the Bulldogs make back-to-back national championship appearances was electric. My mom and sister are Purdue people, and their Boilermakers’ run a couple of years ago had our whole family glued to the TV. And this year? When IU went on its miraculous run, my cousins and friends who bleed Hoosier cream and crimson swept me up in the madness. This Miami grad jumped on that bandwagon with zero shame.
But through all of it, there was always a quiet little voice in the back of my mind: I want this for my team.
I graduated from Miami University in 2005 — and yes, I said Miami University. Not Miami of Florida. Not the Hurricanes. Miami University, in Oxford, Ohio, founded in 1809. As we RedHawk faithful love to point out, Miami was a university before Florida was even a state. So no, we are not confused.
And look — we’ve had our moments. The Miami hockey program has made Frozen Four runs that deserve far more national attention than they get. Ben Roethlisberger once took our RedHawks to a bowl game (I was studying abroad, because of course I was). But a deep, buzzer-beater-filled, ESPN-worthy men’s basketball run? That had never been mine to claim. Until now.
The 2025-26 Miami RedHawks are 29-0.
Read that again. Twenty-nine and zero. Undefeated. Perfect. Leading the MAC at 16-0 in conference play, and with just two games left in the regular season, Miami is on the literal brink of history. As a Class of ’05 alum who spent most of the last two decades watching other people’s programs do special things, I am not taking a single second of this for granted.
This Redhawks team has been must-watch television in the best possible way. The kind of season where you don’t just turn the games on — you clear your schedule for them. There have been buzzer-beaters, last-second shots, and the kind of heart-pounding finishes that turn a normal Tuesday night into a memory. Every close game has felt like a gift.
And then there’s the hometown angle that makes it all a little sweeter. Senior Miami guard Peter Suder, a Carmel, Indiana kid, has been a key piece of this historic run. For those of us living in central Indiana, watching a local talent help push Miami to the edge of something legendary adds an extra layer of pride.
What I wasn’t fully prepared for was how much fun it would be to share this with my son. When Miami comes on ESPN, he gets excited. We watch together. He cheers, finally for MY team. I’ve written this before, but this is what sports are supposed to feel like — generations sitting together, invested in something bigger than any one game.
March Madness is almost here, and for the first time in my life as an alum, I’m heading into it not as a fan of someone else’s team, but as a RedHawk fan with actual, legitimate, undefeated swagger.
Ho Ho Hoosiers? Boiler up? Let’s go Dawgs?
Nah.
Let’s go, RedHawks. All the way.
