Steele began coaching as an undergraduate at Butler University, assisting the varsity boys basketball team at nearby Ben Davis HS from 2001 to 2004. He served one season as a graduate manager at Ohio State before landing his first college coaching position as an assistant coach at Wabash Valley in 2005. Steele moved on to Indiana, where he started as the team's video coordinator in 2006, and was elevated to an assistant coach for the remainder of the 2008 season after Kelvin Sampson's contract was terminated by the Hoosiers as a result of NCAA recruiting violations. After Indiana, Steele was hired by Sean Miller at Xavier for the 2008-09 season. Steele was retained by Chris Mack after Miller accepted the Arizona head coaching position, and has been a part of a Musketeers program that has been to eight NCAA tournaments, including an Elite Eightrun in2017, as well as being part of two Atlantic 10regular season titles, and one Big East regular season title. On March 31, 2018, Steele was promoted to head coach to become the 18th head coach in Xavier history, replacing Mack who departed for Louisville. Travis Steele began his first season with an entirely new coaching staff and a depleted bench, having lost most of Xavier's starters from the previous season to graduation or early declaration for the NBA draft. Xavier would enter the Big East part of their schedule at 8-5 in the non-conference schedule. Despite an early 6-game losing streak in the Big East conference schedule, Steele was able to lead the Musketeers on an end of the regular-season rally, winning 6 of their last 7 regular season conference match-ups. Xavier finished 3rd in the Big East heading into the conference tourney. Likely needing a Big East championship to make the NCAA tournament, Xavier was able to win their first Big East tournament match-up against Creighton, before losing to Villanova in overtime in the Big East tournament semi-final. At 18-15, Xavier qualified for the NIT tournament and would fall in the 2nd Round on the road to the eventual NIT tournament champions, Texas, in overtime. Xavier would finish Travis Steele's first season as head coach at 19-16.
