after the tournament, miller was announced to be a possible candidate for the vacant head coaching position at arizona, which had spent two years under interim head coaches in the wake of the illness and retirement of hall of fame coach lute olson. he initially turned the job down before changing his mind and accepting the job on april 6, 2009 despite having never visited the arizona campus. he was succeeded at xavier by former assistant chris mack. within three months of joining the program, miller had already assembled a recruiting class ranked #12 in the nation by scout.com. miller led arizona to a 16–15 record (10–8 in the pacific-10 conference) in his debut season, and the wildcats missed postseason play for the first time in 25 years.