EVANSVILLE, IN — Tennessee State basketball is headed to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 32 years, but it hasn’t been nearly that long since Tigers coach Nolan Smith was there.
In fact, he went to the NCAA Tournament four straight years (2007-2011) as a star player at Duke. He led the 2010 Blue Devils to the national championship and earned NCAA All-Final Four team honors.
It was a career highlight that would be hard to top. But Smith did just that on March 7 when he led TSU to the Ohio Valley Conference Tournament championship in a 93-67 win over Morehead State (20-13) at Ford Center.
The Tigers (23-9) earned the conference’s automatic berth for the first time since 1994, and Smith said the euphoric feeling of leading a team to a historic victory outweighed the feeling he had as a player in a similar position.
“This is everything. This means more than when I was a player, 100 percent,” Smith said. “When I got into coaching, I said it was always going to be about the players. To be a first-year head coach and for us to have the confidence to make it (to the NCAA Tournament) after all the things we went through together as a coach and as players, it’s just incredible.
“It really does mean more to me than as a player because this is what life is all about. This is what basketball is about, giving back, and becoming a coach means giving back to these young men.”
Smith, 37, set his sights on March Madness almost as soon as he was hired at TSU. When he met his players for the first time, he pointed to the 1994 NCAA Tournament banner hanging from the rafters at Gentry Center and told them they had the opportunity to leave their mark in a big way at TSU.
“He made a focal point of it every day,” OVC Player of the Year Aaron Nkrumah said. “He was always pointing at the banner and telling us, ‘We have the chance to make history.’ That’s how we went about every day. It just became part of our normal day.”
Smith knows what being part of March Madness means for a player and can hardly wait to watch his players enjoy the experience and then benefit from making it happen.
“I’m speechless right now, what these young men did for Tennessee State,” Smith said. “We talked about it all year long that we had the chance to do something special. Now they’re legends. Back in Nashville and at Tennessee State, people are going to know who they are. When we get back to campus, they’re going to get anything they want. I’m going to make sure of that. When you do something legendary, you deserve that.”
Reach Mike Organ at 615-259-8021 or on X @MikeOrganWriter.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Why Tennessee State basketball’s Nolan Smith said March Madness is better as coach
