On Wednesday morning, Creighton announced they will move to the Big East Conference this fall. Shortly after the announcement, White & Blue Review’s Paul Liberty caught up with men’s basketball assistant coach Steve Merfeld in Philadelphia, where the Jays are preparing to take on Cincinnati in the NCAA Tournament.
White & Blue Review: First off, how’s everything going out in Philly?
Steve Merfeld: It’s great. We had a good flight out, everything’s been on time, people are getting checked into their rooms and getting ready to do a little sight-seeing this afternoon.
WBR: There’s a very big game Friday against Cincinnati, obviously, but what’s the talk around the coaching staff and players with the announcement this morning about joining the new Big East?
SM: You know, I don’t think there’s been much of a change in terms of communication. There’s a lot of excitement among the young guys, and obviously the coaching staff, too. There’s challenges that moving up to a league of this level presents, but I think everyone is really, really excited about it. There’s also some really serious sentiments going out to the Missouri Valley, because that’s been such a great league for Creighton University for almost 60 years. So it’s bittersweet, for me. We’re excited about the change, but certainly we’re going to miss the Missouri Valley Conference.
WBR: You mentioned there will be new challenges ahead. Among those will be non-conference scheduling. You have a big part in Creighton’s scheduling; what do you anticipate some of the changes right away will be?
SM: To be very honest, we have talked about that, but at the same time, right now our focus is on one thing and that’s the Bearcats of Cincinnati. As we look ahead to the schedule, a lot of it’s going to depend on — right now, it’s a 10 team league, are we going to play a round-robin with 18 conference games which would be the same as the MVC? — we have to wait to see what’s going to happen with that. It may change our approach a little bit. Potentially, now we may be able to play a major school home-and-home. Those are things that we hope would come our way by joining the Big East Conference. It might mean more television exposure in the non-conference, as Fox has stepped up in support of the new Big East Conference.
There will still be some challenges with scheduling, I’m not going to lie to you. And there will still be some challenges with recruiting, and all the other things that come when you switch leagues. A lot of them will be very positive challenges, but there will be some things you could probably put the term ‘negative’ on. Any time you change, there’s positive and negative involved.
WBR: Do you think there will be any changes to the non-conference schedule for this year, or is that already set in stone?
SM: There’s a few things that are set in stone, for sure. But there are some openings that we have to reevaluate, based on what next year’s team is going to need. This year’s team, we felt it needed some high-major games in the non-conference as well as some solid mid-major games in the non-conference. Some of those games, it’s crazy when you look back at them. The North Texas game, we thought that was going to be a marquee win, or certainly something that would help our RPI, and that was the last game added to the schedule. Looking back on it, we might have been better off playing a Division II team. So you can plan ahead, and hope that you’re doing the right things, but a lot of times you don’t know how tough your schedule actually is until the end of the season. With that said, there’s some flexibility for us right now with our future schedules, as early as next year, that we can evaluate once we’re done playing this year.
The other thing that comes into play is, when will the conference season start? Are we going to start right after Christmas, or are we going to play one or more of these teams before Christmas? There’s a lot of things that need to be determined. If a couple of the conference games are before Christmas, then one or more of our non-conference game dates will have to change.
WBR: With the caliber of teams that we’ll be seeing as conference opponents on a regular basis, is there less pressure to go after high-caliber opponents in the non-conference, or will you still want to go after those games?
SM: I think every team’s different. When you have the number of returning guys that we did this year, and the expectations that we had, and the success that they had the previous year, you want to have as difficult a schedule as you can possibly find. Now, next year’s team is going to be young. We’re losing Gregory Echenique, we already lost Josh Jones out of that class, we lose Grant Gibbs, those are three of our top six players. You have to evaluate each and every season…it’s almost like recruiting. You have to schedule to your needs just like you have to recruit to your needs.
WBR: Do you anticipate trying to keep any of the healthy rivalries with Valley schools going forward?
SM: We haven’t talked about that. It’s something that I know there’s a lot of good feelings towards the Missouri Valley and the rivalries that have been established. Certainly you can’t play all of them, but there may be opportunities to play one or two Valley schools each year to try to keep some rivalries going. But that’s something that the administration and Coach McDermott will have to sit down and determine what’s best now for Creighton University.
