Anthony Grant is Dayton’s new head basketball coach, replacing Archie Miller

Dayton is hiring Oklahoma City Thunder assistant coach Anthony Grant as its new head coach, the school announced on Thursday.

Grant has been an assistant for OKC for the last two seasons. He was the head coach at Alabama from 2009 to 2015 and, before that, at VCU from 2006-2009. He was an assistant for Thunder coach Billy Donovan at Florida before that, and his move to OKC after his firing by Alabama represented a reunion with his former boss.

This is a homecoming for Grant, a UD alum who played for the Flyers for four seasons and graduated in 1987. Grant averaged 11.6 points and 6.7 boards during his career.

He replaces Archie Miller, who left last weekend for the head coaching job at Indiana. Miller made the Flyers into a regular NCAA tournament participant, going 139-63 in six seasons. The last four of those included bids to the Big Dance — an outstanding, consistent run for any mid-major program. The Flyers have established themselves as a top program in the Atlantic 10. Grant’s inheriting a solid situation.

Grant didn’t get VCU to the heights successor Shaka Smart did, but he won at least 24 games in all three of his seasons in Richmond. He got the Rams to the tournament twice, when they were a member of the CAA. In something of a circle story, VCU will now be among Grant’s stiffest competition in the A-10.

He won the SEC West regular season title during his second season at Bama, 2010-11, and got the Tide to the tournament the next year. But his next three seasons didn’t go well, and the Tide fired him after the season in 2015. He spent six years in Tuscaloosa.