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We continue our 2016-17 season preview interview series with new South Dakota State coach TJ Otzelberger. He has always been a great recruiter while working for former Iowa State head coaches Greg McDermott/Fred Hoiberg, and now we get to see how he does while running a program of his own. He was hired as head coach of the Jackrabbits in April and he will get tested quickly with a non-conference schedule featuring several teams from the NCAA tourney last March. HoopsHD’s Jon Teitel got to chat with Coach Otzelberger about his recruiting philosophy and the best athlete in his family (we also wish him a happy birthday today!).
You played basketball at Wisconsin-Whitewater: how good a player were you back in the day, and how did you get into coaching? I was a very average player at best, so I took a lot of pride in just getting to play in college and having a chance to start my career. I had a job lined up in the business world but my old high school coach said that he thought I might have the coaching bug: I tried it and was hooked.
In the 2013 NCAA tourney as an assistant to Fred Hoiberg at Iowa State, Aaron Craft scored 18 PTS including a 3-PT shot with 0.5 seconds left in a 3-PT win by Ohio State: where does that rank among the most devastating losses of your career? That is really high up there. We had an opportunity to win at Kansas that same year and they banked in a 3 at the buzzer. Craft had that shot available all game long and elected not to take it, and then he stepped up at the end and made it.
In the 2016 NCAA tourney your new team had a 5-PT loss to Maryland: what do you think they learned from that game that can help them this year? I watched the game: I think that it will teach us to schedule against teams with athleticism/quickness in non-conference play so that we are prepared for the postseason. We have to schedule very competitively.
In April you were named head coach of the Jackrabbits: why did you take the job? I have been fortunate to work for 4 highly successful coaches: they won in different ways, which helped prepare me to have success. My wife and I love being in a college town where basketball is a big deal, and it is a great environment to raise a family. From a professional standpoint you want to be at a school that is committed to winning at the highest level, and South Dakota State offered that to us.
Your non-conference schedule includes games against Cal/Northern Iowa/Wichita State: which of these games do you feel will present your biggest test? A lot of the schedule was already in place when I came on board, but we were fortunate that Cal offered us the opportunity to go on the road and play an NCAA tourney team who had a top-5 draft pick in Jaylen Brown. It is an immediate challenge to see where we were at, and is great for Mike Daum to play against a guy of Ivan Rabb’s quality. In the long term the experience we will get from it will be great.
You only have 2 seniors on the roster: do you think this team is built to win now or is it going to be a work in progress? I am still evaluating each day on what everyone needs to improve on. We return 8 players, 4 of whom played significant minutes last year, so our approach is to put 100% into each day and just focus on the process. We lost our top-4 guards from last year but we just want to make this team the best we can this year.
You also have 3 in-state players on the roster: what sort of recruiting philosophy will you have in terms of geography? We are going to try and do a great job of in-state recruiting and be very aggressive early in the process. However, my staff and I have a background of recruiting throughout the Midwest, and if the talent we need does not exist in our region then we will utilize relationships elsewhere and recruit nationally.
SO PF Mike Daum won almost every award in the Summit League last year: what makes him such a great player? He has great character and a great work ethic. He has persevered through a lot of ups and downs and very few schools recruited him coming out of high school. He redshirted as a freshman and continued to grow as a person/player. He is an unbelievable teammate who takes care of his business every day. I think that those awards will continue to come for him.
Your wife Alison played in the WNBA: who is the best athlete in the family? My wife is absolutely/unequivocally the best athlete in the family!
What are your goals for the upcoming season, and what are your expectations for the upcoming season? It is exciting to be in a place that expects to win but we will not get ahead of ourselves. We expect to be at the top of the conference and compete year in and year out. When you play 3 games in 3 days during a conference tourney anything can happen, but we will try to do the best we can, maximize our strengths, and play together as a team.