Ferris State men’s basketball officially introduced Brooks Miller as their 15th head coach in the program’s history during a press conference on April 15.
Miller brings experience from all levels of college basketball, most recently being the associate head coach with Central Michigan under former Bulldogs head coach Andy Bronkema.
Prior to Central Michigan, Miller was the head coach for DIII Trine University. He spent 14 seasons with the Thunder, where he went 247-121, including a 142-73 record against MIAA opponents. He guided Trine to the 2024 national championship and also secured the NCAA Division III National Coach of the Year in 2020-21 and 2023-24.
Miller was introduced by Athletic Director Steve Brockelbank, who spoke about why Ferris chose Miller.
“When we first had an opportunity to speak with Brooks, he mentioned a few things that really stuck with us as a hiring committee,” Brockelbank said. “One of the things that Brooks mentioned was, as a young coach, he really took the time to suck in and learn from all the people he worked with. If you do not know much about Brooks’ resume, he worked with Ed Douma at Hillsdale College, who won a national championship. Bobby Knight, who won three national championships at Indiana, and Steve Green, who won three national championships with South Plains College.”
Miller has plenty of ties to Ferris State, having coached under former Bulldog head coaches Bill Sall, Bronkema, and Ed Douma, who served as an assistant coach under Sall.
One of Miller’s assistant coaches at Trine was former Bulldog All-American Drew Lehman. Lehman played from 2011-2015 with the Bulldogs, averaging 11 points a game, while helping the Bulldogs win a GLIAC title in 2014-15 and an appearance in the NCAA tournament.
Miller spoke about how he plans on tackling recruiting, as well as the transfer portal.
“I think we’re going to look at any availability or any possibility available to us to find the best players we can,” Miller said. “Whether that’s the transfer portal guys transferring down, if that’s guys transferring up DII, guys looking for a place with a little more resources and a little more tradition in history, or just really like the way we play. We were able to get the Garland brothers that I talked about at Trine; they transferred in conference to us because, after playing against us for three or four years, they were so intrigued with how we did things that they wanted to be a part of it.”
Miller brings 22 years of coaching experience to the Bulldogs, with his first coaching job at Hillsdale College under Douma. In 2007, he became a graduate assistant coach for Naismith Hall of Famer Bobby Knight. In 2009, he became the assistant coach at South Plains College under Steve Green, who won three NJCAA National Championships.
President of Ferris State, Dr. Bill Pink, spoke about why he believes Miller will be successful with Ferris State.
“We had amazing candidates who wanted to be a part of this Bulldog family, but there was one that truly stood out,” Pink said. “He truly stood out in a way that we said, this needs to be our next basketball coach. Not only because of the history that he brings to our community, and not only because of being the quality coach and the quality leader that we have seen. History shows all of that, but also because of his desire to be a part of this Bulldog family, a desire that, in our conversation with him, he said, this is where I want to be.”
In his short time with Ferris State, Miller has already signed multiple players, including David Williams from Birmingham Brother Rice. On April 18, it was announced that Merritt Alderink was transferring to the Bulldogs, where he played in 25 games last year with Eastern Michigan, and in the 2024-25 season, playing in 13 games with Indiana State.