Together, again: Miles, Smith share postgame stage

By Brian Rosenthal / Huskers.com

Tim Miles and Craig Smith coached together for 11 years at four different schools – Mayville State, North Dakota State, Colorado State and Nebraska.

The close friends and colleagues share similar coaching styles and philosophies, as well as outgoing personalities and senses of humor.

So why not put that on display, together, at a postgame news conference?

Rarely do two coaches share the same podium and answer questions together after a game – especially as one that turned as competitive as Nebraska’s 73-62 victory over South Dakota before 10,627 fans Saturday at Pinnacle Bank Arena.

But Miles, the fifth-year Nebraska coach, and Smith, the third-year South Dakota Coach, are a rare breed.

What you’re about to read is what ensued over a 15-minute session after Smith sat down next to Miles and asked to see a stat sheet.

Miles began. (For clarity’s sake, what Smith says will be in italics.)

“I figured if we didn’t do a joint press conference, I’d probably never get him out of here.”

“I’m surprised you let me talk. I was here 11 years and I didn’t say a whole lot.”

“This time. This time. I had a lot of answers.”

The coaches then started to get down to business, discussing a game Nebraska led by 22 in the first half, only to see South Dakota pull within two points with 7:30 remaining in the game.

“It was a very good game. I think South Dakota played the way I thought they would. I knew it would be difficult to separate, even at halftime when we were up 14, to me it felt like it was a lot tighter than that.

“It didn’t to us, just so you know.”

Miles laughs.

“I’ll stop interrupting.”

“The way you complain at the refs the whole time.”

“Did you SEE them?”

Miles began to respond before thinking otherwise and turning discussion back to the game – one his team regained control of thanks to late clutch shooting by Jack McVeigh (team-high 16 points) and Tai Webster (12 points.)

“I was really proud of our guys the way they performed down the stretch,” Miles said. “I thought, again, South Dakota competed really hard, and really, I thought, out-competed us the second half for that stretch of time. When you get punched in the mouth, you can’t look at that and say, ‘Oh, gee, what’s going on? Do I have any teeth left?’ You just got to swallow them, spit the blood out and keep battling.”

“I think I learned from somebody who is intelligent and generally well thought-out …”

Miles laughs.

“Inside joke.”

“That’s what I said on his first letter of recommendation, ‘He’s generally well thought out.’ Which, he’s never proved me wrong.”

 “You’ve got to like the taste of your own blood.”

“Ya, you do. Carlton Hurst does.”

Hurst, a 6-foot-3 South Dakota guard, had eight points and 10 rebounds for the Coyotes.

“He does. That guy’s a warrior.”

Smith continues.

“First of all, thanks for letting me speak with you. If we would’ve lost I know it wouldn’t have been like that.”

“No, you did lose. You did lose.”

“Wait, I’m sorry. I mean if you would’ve lost.”

“I was just getting it square right here. You didn’t win.”

Smith thanked Nebraska and Miles for letting South Dakota, a member of the Summit League, play this game. He noted the four players on the Coyotes’ roster from Nebraska, including two from Lincoln, Logan Power and Triston Simpson.

“He’s a man of his word. I know initially two years ago when we were looking at the position at the University of South Dakota, that’s one thing he brought up. I think he said we were going to play there, but he doesn’t remember that part.”

“But seriously, it’s all-win for us and not much to gain for Coach Miles and Nebraska. Once he says something, he’s going to stick to his word. It means so much for our team and our program. We got better. We looked like Edward Scissorhands out there for the first 8 minutes or so?”

“Yeah.”

“A lot of turnovers, just driving in there, like playing volleyball, kind of throwing it up there, see what would happen… Once we settled in, I really liked what we saw from our team. I thought we had great resolve. They’re very, very good -- 24th-toughest schedule in the country. I’m sure that will be top 10 in the next week or so…”

“Yeah, it will be.”

“But proud of how we played when we got down 22 in a hostile environment with such a young team.”

Smith noted that, according to basketball guru Ken Pomeroy, South Dakota ranks No. 350 out of 351 teams this season when ranking experienced teams.

“What are we? We’re like 289 or something.”

“Are you really?”

Finally, a question from the media corps: Why not more zone defense from South Dakota, which had success in slowing Nebraska’s penetration after switching midway through the first half?

“I’m not sure. I wish maybe we would have.”

Smith mentioned his team’s 10 games, nine practices and three days off over the last 22 days with 10 newly-eligible players in his program.

“Four redshirted?”

“Three redshirted, newly eligible, seven brand new guys. You’re always correcting me. I appreciate that.”

“Just trying to be accurate.”

“My big brother here. I like to embellish a little bit. I’m not sure who I take after.”

OK, back to the zone question.

“We don’t play a lot of zone, but we had to just to get them off attack. How good is Webster? He’s playing at such a high level. How many big shots did he hit tonight? He’s just playing with so much swagger right now, and he’s leading them. You could see that watching film. It was easy to see. Then (Glynn) Watson is so electric. Just go back and watch the UCLA game, and nobody could stay in front of that guy. It’s hard to emulate that pace, so we had to do something to get them slowed down.”

Nebraska went more than 3 minutes without scoring during a 12-0 South Dakota run in the second half that drew the Coyotes within 56-54. Miles said his team needs to do a better job of zone attack, and he shouldered the blame.

“I’ve got this guy over here auditioning for my job. You’re not going to can me yet, buddy.”

“I hope they don’t. Trust me, brother. You guys are going to get it done.”

“We need to firm that (zone attack) up. I need to do a better job. I thought we did a better job late when we went with more of a power game with two low guys. That gave us a chance for a couple of offensive rebounds. And we made a couple of threes. We’re going to have to make threes. We’re going to have to get guys ready to make threes. I think we will.”

Another question. Why did 6-foot-11 freshman center Jordy Tshimanga not play in the second half?

“Quite frankly, he had played pretty good for some time early, and then kind of faded out a little bit as the half went on. I just didn’t like the matchup, because (Tyler) Flack can make threes and (Burch)-Manning can drive really well. And they’re good on the boards. You get a kid like Carlton Hurst, who Craig and I recruited back at CSU, and he’s a warrior. That kid got 10 rebounds. We actually thought when we recruited him – I don’t know if you remember this, but I do – but he was more like a 3-4 type of guy. In the Mountain West, you can kind of get away mid-sized. It didn’t surprise me at all that he made a big impact on the game. It just really changed how we had to play.”

Smith answered a question about Simpson, a freshman Smith said had a “Magic Johnson-type of smile,” is very personable and plays hard. Smith’s three true freshmen played a season-low in minutes against Nebraska.

“I like this team. I like where we’re going. We’ve got a long, long way to go.”

What about Miles’ team?

“I told him yesterday …I really like his team. They have great resolve. They’ve very tough-minded. It’s hard to get anything on them. They play with physicality. They don’t screw up on the defensive end. Their positioning is very, very good. You’ve got to score on all three levels.  You’ve got to be able to shoot the three, have a pull-up game and score inside, and I think they do a great job defending all of those areas. You’re sitting there, like, ‘OK, how can we attack them?’ And we had some thoughts that we could, we felt like we could …”

“Yeah, don’t tell anybody those things.”

“Then offensively, like McVeigh tonight, he hit some big shots in the second half, got his groove going, exactly what they – he – needed. He started feeling it, made a couple of big threes in the second half when we were in the midst of a big-time run. Coach has been very up front and honest – they’ve got to make some threes that way. Watson’s a load. You sit there and watch that kid play, it’s just like, I mean, he’s still young, too, and relatively inexperienced, but with Webster getting downhill … I think Ed Morrow, that dude just eats the rim. It’s unbelievable, and he’s so powerful. Like, we told our guys in scout, Ed Morrow is like our Carlton Hurst, except 6-7. He’s just strong and athletic. (Michael) Jacobson, the guy just doesn’t make any mistakes. He’s just so sound in everything they do. It’s just a matter of getting some of those freshmen going and getting them minutes.”

Miles answered a question about whether his team was looking ahead to Wednesday’s home game against instate rival Creighton. He said no, and pointed to his team’s 26-4 lead 12 minutes into the game.

“Just look at the way we came out. Until he (Smith) changed the game schematically, that’s when mentality changed. We got a little selfish with some shots, we rushed some stuff up there. Ed had 10 and 6, Michael had 10, 11 and 5 (assists), and they’re hanging their heads like they just lost their puppy dog.

“That’s a good mentality for them to be in, but there’s no doubt that they know they had to bring their best tonight to win. We take a lot of pride in winning in Pinnacle Bank Arena. We didn’t win enough last year and we’re trying to make up for that this year.”

So is Nebraska ready for next week’s challenge with Creighton and Kansas?

Allow Smith to respond with sarcasm.

“We gave them a great look. I mean, our speed replicates Creighton and Kansas. Tremendous pace we played with.”

“Is your timer … did it go off?”

“I thought we were going to talk about something funny, like Miles’ golf game.”

“This is the way coaches’ meetings go, too. I just never talk. I just walk out of there and do what I want, anyway.”

Miles then admitted the big week ahead for his team.

“Creighton’s better than I thought they were going to be. Now my job and our job as our program is to see if they can sustain it, to really challenge them, just the way this guy challenged us tonight. Then of course Kansas, I’ve wanted to play a Big 12 team to kind of rekindle those things.”

So, would Miles and Smith be up for playing each other again?

Smith quickly raised his hand.

“We would be in. We’re all in.”

“Wait ‘til this (Matt) Mooney kid gets out of there. He had 18 and 5. He’s pretty good.”

More laughter.

“I just appreciate Craig. He made us better tonight. We made them better, too, but I think we got a lot more out of the game than they did, except, we gave them a little cash. Not as much as you wanted.”

“We got a little cash. You took care of us.”

“More than (University of) Mary.”

Smith thanked Miles for the big-game experience.

“They walk into the gym (PBA) and were looking around … just the whole aura of the Big Ten and all the people, the way people at Nebraska treat people, so classy with everything they do, somebody meeting you as soon as you get off the bus. We even got to drive the bus IN, inside the building. That’s a big-time feel for us. But it’s just a little bit of everything that you get a little star struck, then they see Coach Miles walk out on the floor and they’re like, ‘That’s Coach Miles!’

“A couple of guys wanted autographs but I wouldn’t give them. Only selfies.”

Finally, Miles wraps up the joint news conference.

“OK, thank you.”

“That’s it? I thought we were going to keep going!”

Maybe another day, on another stage.

Reach Brian at brosenthal@huskers.com or follow him on Twitter @GBRosenthal.