From the time Creighton started playing men’s basketball (1916-1917) through the 1959-1960 season, the Bluejays called the Vinardi Center home. CU went 336-92 in 42 seasons in the on-campus gym, which now stands as home to the basketball practice facility.
Each week of the Creighton men’s basketball season, WBR will catch up with a Creighton coach to report about practice and the state of the program.
This week, we speak with CU assistant coach Steve Merfeld.
Steve Merfeld's Shining Moment as Hampton Head Coach (by Brendan Loy, from Flickr)
White & Blue Review: The Creighton Bluejays dominated Rockhurst 81-42 Sunday afternoon. What did you and the other coaches take away from the lone exhibition game of the season?
Steve Merfeld: This early in the season you are going to have some jitters. With this being the first game at Creighton for a lot of guys, and with the opening weekend around the corner, we expected to see some mistakes. I thought they looked okay but we want to see them improve on what we have been working on in practice.
Good teams will consistently improve as the year goes on, but we need to get better individually. I was not as concerned about the turnovers, as these guys are learning a new up-tempo style of play, and they will improve. Turnovers are going to come with that learning curve. I think we need to improve on the defensive end as well as rebounding.
WBR: Fans are very familiar with the depth that you have, particularly in the post. Did the game on Sunday bring the coaching staff closer to making any decisions on who will redshirt?
SM: Those are really difficult decisions. Out of the freshman, any one of them could help us this season. It is a big decision to sit out an entire season and stick around for a fifth. Coach Mac [Greg McDermott] is great at including the players in these decisions, and they all come from great families so he really includes the family in the decision as well. One thing is for sure, Austin [Chatman] will not redshirt. We can’t afford to have Antoine [Young] playing 36 minutes a game. We are comfortable with AY playing 25 minutes a game with Austin as a back up. The good thing is even if we don’t make a decision on who will redshirt, it is doubtful we will need to play them this weekend anyway.
WBR: You have a lot of input when it comes to scheduling for Creighton and the opponents we will see. It has been pointed out that Creighton left one game on the table instead of scheduling another opponent, ever a low major. Was there a reason Creighton did not schedule that last game?
SM: We could have, but you want to make sure it is a smart game. If we were to schedule a low major, it would have hurt our RPI. We don’t want to schedule people because we need to fill the schedule, we want to try and get good opponents that will help our resume. We would have scheduled a team if the situation came up, but you also don’t want to get too road happy.
WBR: Following up on that thought, how hard is it to schedule for Creighton?
SM: There are a lot of factors that go into the scheduling process. Creighton is recognized nationally as a great team and as a great fan base, and teams know that it will be tough to play in Omaha. BCS teams really rely on the income they make off home games, and that makes it hard to get them on the road, especially in a tough environment. I have never been at that level of coaching, but I would think it would be beneficial to test yourself in the non-conference to ready your team for the BCS conference season. If you look at the Big Ten, for example, and Nebraska, although this doesn’t apply to them because they will play us, if you stay at home and don’t test yourself, it will be really tough when your first game in conference is at Michigan State. Teams at that level want to make sure they get a win if they go on the road, so we sort of also take it as a compliment that they will not play here in Omaha. With that in mind, I think we have some good teams on our non-conference slate this season.
WBR: What will be the key to this season’s non-conference schedule?
SM: First thing we need to do is figure out how to win on the road. We are always right there in our road games, but we seem to fall short when we need that last basket or defensive stop. We have some difficult road games in the non-conference, and I think those games will be key.
WBR: You have been around the Valley for a while now, coming from a successful run with Hampton to taking the head coaching job at Evansville and sticking with the Valley through Bradley and now at Creighton. Over your years, what sort of trends have you seen in the Valley and how do you see this conference now?
SM: I think the Valley has made a name for itself as a solid conference. The talent in the league is always going to go in cycles, and I don’t know if we will see the success we did in 2006 or 2007 when we were able to get four and three teams in [the NCAA Tournament], respectively. We do have a lot of young talent in the Valley this year, and I would say the talent is on an upswing. The one thing that has been a constant in the Valley has been great coaching. There has always been great coaching in the league, and I think that is a major reason it has been able to keep the stature that it currently has.