Coach Smith adjusts to life in Vermillion

It’s been seven months since Craig Smith was announced as the new men’s basketball head coach at the University of South Dakota.

For Smith, realizing it has been that long already seems crazy.

“It’s really hard to believe that it’s been seven months,” Smith said. “It’s gone really, really fast, but it’s been an exciting time. The people here are fantastic.”

Over the last seven months, it hasn’t just been Smith who has had to acclimate to life in Vermillion, but also his entire family. Smith, who grew up in the small town of Austin, Minn., said he feels right at home at USD and Vermillion.

“It’s been a great transition and my family couldn’t be happier,” Smith said. “My wife is in heaven. We have a very nice house on an acre lot, and she’s a country girl, so she loves it.

Since his hire, Smith’s been constantly busy. Whether it’s recruiting or hiring a staff to work with, Smith said it no doubt has been an enjoyable process, but one that’s required plenty of work.

“Living away from my family for three months, recruiting like crazy and trying to put a staff together and figuring out your team was a challenge, but I knew it would be when they hired me,” Smith said. “The staffs I’ve been on have always taken over struggling programs and have been able to flip them around, and we expect to do the same here.”

The school announced the hire of the former University of Nebraska-Lincoln assistant coach last March. He left his family behind so his children could finish out the school year. But he said now his four children, Landon, 13, Brady, 11, Carson, 9, and Lauren, 4, are even starting to get used to Vermillion.

“Once school started they started to meet a lot of people, especially when they got involved in sports,” Smith said. “Plus, we’ve been having a lot of sleepovers recently, so I think they like that.”

But Smith isn’t just having fun. He realizes the adjustment period is nearing the end, and his team’s first game is less than a month away. They begin the season on the road against Utah State Nov. 14.

Assistant coach and former Jackrabbit Austin Hansen said only time will show how great of a coach Smith is, but the reports have already been glowing.

“He does a really good job of bringing a lot of energy and excitement to practices and workouts,” Hansen said. “He gets players’ juices flowing.”

Junior guard Casey Kasperbauer is already playing for his third head coach in three years at USD, so change is nothing new to him.

However, he said he’s happy Smith has put an emphasis on making the team as tightly knit of a group as possible.

“He’s always asking the players how the team chemistry is within the locker room, and I think that’s really smart of him,” Kasperbauer said. “He knows we can have as much talent as we want, but if we aren’t getting along, we won’t be a very good team.”

The growth of Smith as a coach revolves around his relationship with Nebraska head coach Tim Miles. The two have a long history together as Smith worked under Miles at Mayville State, North Dakota State, Colorado State and Nebraska.

Now on his own, Smith said he still talks with Miles on a regular basis.

“He’s a mentor to me and a guy that always has great insight,” Smith said. “He’s been like a big brother to me.”

Going through the experiences with Miles has taught Smith that patience is a virtue.

“Going through it as many times as we have together, we’ve never had the ‘sexy job,’ and we’ve been fortunate enough to make it that way,” Smith said. “But you’ve got to have patience and you’ve got to have great people around you.”

Smith said he knows the hard work as a head coach at a new program has only just begun. One mindset he keeps near and dear to him is that there are no shortcuts in this business.

He said that’s an attitude he brings to work with him everyday.

“I’m super excited about our progression and happy about all the hard work that’s been done so far,” Smith said. “I look back at where we were. It’s night and day, and I expect it to be the same difference three months from now.”

(Photo: Craig Smith, the University of South Dakota men’s basketball coach, splits the team into two groups for scrimmage during practice Monday evening in the DakotaDome. Smith was previously an assistant coach at the University of Nebraska Lincoln. Malachi Petersen / The Volante)