Miami University Director of Athletics David Sayler has announced Glenn Box as the 10th head coach in Miami women’s basketball history. Box spent the past seven seasons with the Indiana women’s basketball program, the last four as associate head coach.
“I would like to express my sincere gratitude for the opportunity which has been granted to me,” said Box. “Competing for championships while fostering an environment of doing things the right way will be the vision moving forward.”
During Box’s time with the Hoosiers, they won 20 or more games in all seven of his seasons and earned seven postseason berths, including five NCAA Tournament appearances. In those NCAA appearances, the Hoosiers have been to the second round all five times, made two Sweet Sixteens (2021, 2022) and advanced to the Elite Eight in 2020-21. This past season, the Hoosiers went 28-4, earning a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament. IU added a Big Ten regular season championship (first in 40 years) and climbed as high as No. 2 in both national polls this past season.
Under Box’s tutelage, 11 Hoosier guards have earned a total of 16 All-Big Ten honors including four-straight first team selections for Grace Berger (2019-23). Berger became the program’s first WNBA first round selection in 2023, as she went seventh overall to the Indiana Fever and was a six-time All-American honorable mention in her five-year collegiate career.
Box helped guide the Hoosiers’ defense, a calling card of the program. In 2022-23, they led the Big Ten in field goal percentage defense (38.7%) and scoring defense (62.1 ppg.). Mackenzie Holmes became the program’s first Defensive Player of the Year, and for the first time ever, IU had two players on the All-Big Ten defensive team in Holmes and Chloe Moore-McNeil.
“A huge welcome to Glenn, his wife Leah and their entire family to Miami,” said Sayler. “Coach Box quickly rose to the top of our search due to his influential role with the current historic run at Indiana, experience within the MAC and prior head coaching experience as well. I am very excited for our future under his leadership and direction.”
Box arrived in Bloomington after spending two seasons at Saint Louis University. Overall, he spent a total of four seasons in two stints with the Billikens, having also served as an assistant coach at SLU in 2010-11 and 2011-12.
Under Box’s watch, SLU sophomore Jackie Kemph became the program’s first player to earn All-America honors as she received honorable mention distinction from the Associated Press and the school’s first conference Player of the Year. Kemph also was named to the A-10 All-Academic Team and earned Academic All-District laurels. Along with Kemph, Box played a role in two additional Saint Louis student-athletes who earned all-conference honors in 2015-16.
Prior to his second stint at Saint Louis, Box coached two years at Akron in 2012-13 and 2013-14. During his tenure, the Zips played in the 2014 NCAA Tournament after winning the Mid-American Conference Tournament championship in 2014. In 2012-13, Akron won the East Division of the MAC, going 14-4 in conference play.
At Akron, Box played a role in five players earning All-MAC honors in two seasons, including the school’s first-ever Mid-American Conference Player of the Year in 2013 in Rachel Tecca.
Before his first stop in Saint Louis in 2010, Box spent two years on the sideline as an assistant at Western Michigan. Prior to that, he spent six seasons at Rend Lake College, a junior college in Ina, Ill. He spent his first three years at Rend Lake as an assistant with the men’s program before moving on to become head coach of the women’s team.
A native of Cairo, Ill., Box posted a 64-31 record and downed four nationally ranked opponents during his three years as head coach. In 2007-08, Rend Lake went 21-11 and reached as high as No. 16 in the NJCAA national poll. He guided the Lady Warriors to a 24-8 ledger in 2006-07, the second-most victories in school history, while finishing in the top 25 in the country in scoring, field goal percentage, three-point field goal percentage and free throw percentage.
Box earned his associate’s degree in elementary education at Rend Lake in 1996 and went on to obtain his bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from Southeast Missouri State in 1998. He began his coaching career in the Cairo school district before entering the college ranks.
Box is married to Leah and has four children, two sons, Darius and William, and daughters, Auna and Bella.
