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Chatelain: Former Husker aide Craig Smith thriving miles north with South Dakota
South Dakota coach Craig Smith, a former Husker assistant, has built South Dakota into a winner with the help of players from Nebraska. They include Tyler Hagedorn, a junior forward from Norfolk who averages 14 points and six rebounds for the 18-6 Coyotes.
VERMILLION, S.D. — Here in North Nebraska, the leader of the pack smells blood. Jackrabbit blood.
Craig Smith, coming out of a second-half timeout, turns to his Coyote fans behind the scorer’s table and urges them.
Get up.
South Dakota opened a 14-point lead over rival South Dakota State, but the coach wants more. Smith squats into a defensive stance and watches his team hound SDSU star Mike Daum into one missed shot, then another.
Smith pumps his fist. As Triston Simpson dribbles toward him, Smith marches down the sideline and coaxes fans behind the basket.
Let’s go.
Seconds later, senior transfer Nick Fuller buries a 3 for a 56-39 lead. The big red crowd roars. Back the other way, Smith drops into his stance again, his tie swinging side to side, one hand smacking the next. Another Daum miss. Another ovation. The blowout is on.
By night’s end, Coyote fans have a 19-point win and bragging rights. One more step forward for a coach who won’t stand still.
“He definitely has the most energy out of anybody in this program,” junior forward Tyler Hagedorn said. “He gives us energy.”
Four years ago, Smith left Tim Miles’ side and took his first Division I head coaching job. Now, 160 miles north of Lincoln, he’s building one of the nation’s best mid-major programs — with all kinds of Nebraska flavor.
Simpson, the starting point guard who had 20 points against SDSU, comes from Lincoln North Star. Hagedorn, who averages 14 points and six rebounds, is from Norfolk. Fuller spent four years at NU. Two reserves, Logan Power (Lincoln Christian) and Brady Delimont (Ainsworth), comprise the rest of the “Nebraska boys,” as they occasionally call themselves.
They’re 18-6 this season and, until a Saturday loss at Denver, ranked higher than the Huskers in Ken Pomeroy’s national ratings — now USD is 81st and Nebraska is 62nd.
The Coyotes pushed TCU to the final minute and nearly stunned UCLA in Pauley Pavilion. But the season highlight — so far — was the blowout of the Jackrabbits in front of 5,004.
“That’s what we live for,” Hagedorn said. “That’s why we all signed up for this program.”
That’s why Smith took the job. When the game was over, the ’Yotes made a lap around the court, high-fiving fans. Where was the coach? He’d gone up into the student section, fists raised. His tie was loose. Beads of sweat speckled his bald head. He shook hands with about half the campus.
“It’s marketing, right?” Smith said. “You gotta give them some love. They make a difference.”
Sounds like Miles, right?
Smith surprised a few friends when he left his boss after Nebraska’s run to the NCAA tournament. He took a pay cut — $250,000 to $180,000 — and accepted a one-year contract at USD, where fans had suffered three consecutive losing seasons and grown increasingly frustrated by South Dakota State’s success.
But in March 2014, the day before No-Sit Sunday in Lincoln, South Dakota announced plans to build a new 6,000-seat arena. Game-changer. The ceiling is low, the lights are bright, the crowd is right next to the court.
“You wouldn’t necessarily think that 6,000 seats would be intimate,” USD Athletic Director David Herbster said, “but this place is.”
The cavernous DakotaDome next door was a significant home-court advantage — opponents didn’t make many jump shots — but 35-year-old football stadiums aren’t so good at luring 18-year-old basketball players.
“I never want a kid to come here because of the arena,” Smith said, “but when we had the dome, we could be in the lead recruiting a kid and then they come to campus and we could lose him.”
Recruiting to one of Division I basketball’s smallest towns (population 10,571) is still a challenge. But Smith found kids who value camaraderie over entertainment.
After Wednesday’s win, Smith talked to me in the hallway as Coyote players filed out of the locker room. He stopped when sophomore Tyler Peterson walked by.
“Hey, you were really, really good tonight,” Smith told him. “Your leadership on the floor. Communicating. Who’s doing what. Always checking with the coaches. You can’t underestimate that. We need that out of you all the time. Because I know you can do it.”
“I got you, Coach,” Peterson said, giving Smith a fist-bump.
Then came Simpson, the savvy sophomore.
“You know how hard I had to work at recruiting this guy right here?” Smith said. “Do you have any idea?”
Simpson’s decision came down to South Dakota and South Dakota State. What swayed him?
Smith’s sense of humor and the idea of “building a legacy.” SDSU had been to the NCAA tournament (2012 and ’13). USD hadn’t.
You can come here and start something new, Smith said.
“I want to be part of the team that goes to the first NCAA tournament,” Simpson said.
Smith has mastered that recruiting pitch. He helped Miles rebuild North Dakota State, Colorado State and Nebraska. He worked his own magic at NAIA Mayville State, inheriting a one-win team and three years later playing for a national championship.
For all their similarities, Miles and Smith aren’t clones. The Nebraska coach prefers a slower pace and grittier defense.
“Every time I watch him,” Miles said, “I’m like, are you gonna guard anybody?!?”
Miles sees the big picture, though. Smith’s character, intellect and game management are a winning formula — “I think he can build programs at any level.”
When will Smith be ready for the next renovation?
Last March, South Dakota fans worried they might lose him after the Coyotes won their first Summit League regular-season title. Smith interviewed at Drake, and one Des Moines outlet reported that he’d accepted the job.
A new contract — three years at $275,000 per season — helped keep him in Vermillion.
“What he’s building here is pretty special and I think it’s going to take a pretty special program to pull him away,” Herbster said.
Wednesday night, when most of the players and fans had gone home, Smith offered a tour of the Coyotes’ new den, which reminds him of a smaller Pinnacle Bank Arena. He showed me the locker room and the weight room. Like Miles, he’s an eager storyteller.
One minute, he’s recalling a trip to California when he spent a day with John Wooden. The next minute, he’s describing a breakfast with the weeping mother of Matt Mooney, South Dakota’s best player, just before he committed.
“Every now and then,” Smith said, “you just believe in a guy so much and he believes in you.”
Belief has produced 40 wins the past two seasons. Fans are forecasting five to 10 more in the snowy streets of Vermillion.
You’ve probably heard Miles’ line about Nebraska being “the Hawaii of the Big Ten.” Well, Smith has tweaked it a bit.
“I always say we’re the Hawaii of the Dakotas.”
If anybody can make it stick, it’s Craig Smith.
dirk.chatelain@owh.com