ISU assistant Graves back home, learning something new

Oct. 28—Matthew Graves did not play at Indiana State, but that doesn't mean Hulman Center isn't home to him in his own way.

When Graves was a standout on White River Valley's excellent early 1990s teams, he was a Hulman Center regular for the Wolverines back when the venue hosted a regional and semistate in the single-class Indiana high school basketball tournament.

Graves can easily reel off the Hulman Center memories.

"My sophomore year in high school we lost in the championship game of the regional we lost to Steve Hart's Terre Haute South team," Graves recalled. "In '92, we won the regional in Hulman Center and lost in the first game of semistate at Hulman Center. During my senior year, we won the regional at Hulman Center. Had pretty good success as a high school player at Hulman Center."

And as a player at Butler?

"I don't think I ever lost to Indiana State," said Graves, accurately. Butler was 5-0 against the Sycamores with Graves on the roster, including two wins in Terre Haute. Graves was on the losing end a few times when he was on Butler's coaching staff as well as when Evansville visited during his season there as an assistant.

So even though Graves is associated with WRV — and especially, Butler — Hulman Center is a Homecoming for the Switz City native.

"It's been terrific coming back to the Wabash Valley area. A lot of friends are still in the area. My Mom and Dad [Rick and Melonie] still live in the same house I grew up in. They do a great job of traveling and following me play, but now it will be really easy. They'll be at 60 to 70% of the games," Graves said.

The home part of it is appealing, but this isn't a typical Homecoming story, because while Graves may be re-connecting with a familiar venue of his part, he's here to embrace the new too.

Graves was part of Josh Schertz's first-year coaching staff from the beginning. On the day Schertz was announced as head coach, it was already known that Graves was going to join the staff from Xavier, where he was a special assistant to head coach Travis Steele.

"The most appealing thing was Coach Schertz. We've had a relationship for 10 years, knowing each other and talking basketball," Graves said. "When he called and wanted me to be a part of the program, it was too good to pass up. It's coming back to the Wabash Valley and near my parents, which is nice, but it's also an opportunity for me to grow and develop as a coach."

That last bit is a big key. Graves didn't come to Terre Haute to settle in with a familiar system. He wanted the challenge of learning a new one.

"Coach Schertz has a great basketball mind and the style of basketball he's going to implement is far different than anything I've been a part of. So selfishly? I'm learning a lot everyday and hopefully one of these days I'll get another opportunity to be a head coach and this opportunity kind of adds to that toolbox of knowledge," Graves said.

Graves has been associated with motion offense coaches like Brad Stevens and Todd Lickliter. That's not what ISU will be running under Schertz. The spread offense is read-and-react, it takes a lot of patience and time to get used to if you haven't run it.

So in that sense? Summer conditioning was time for school for Graves as much as it was the Sycamores.

"You're in an accelerated learning process. To be honest? During the summer? There was the feeling you were swimming and just barely being able to breathe at times. Jobbo [Xavier Bledson] and Cam Henry knew more than what I did. I could go to them and ask questions," Graves said.

"You get back to watching a lot of film. My nature being inquisitive and asking questions, Coach Schertz is good at explaining in detail why we're doing something," Graves continued. "I'm up from the remedial stage of learning to now I can keep up in the moment and when we go through practice plans, I can see what's he written down and can figure out what's going to happen before he explains it to us. I'm finally getting to the point where I'm out of the learning approach to the teaching part for the players."

Graves may be learning a new system, but the reciprocal part is that Schertz and ISU's new Division I players are learning from him. Graves has been at the Division I level as a coach since 2000 and he has Missouri Valley Conference experience as well when he was at Evansville in 2017-18 under Marty Simmons.

"Matthew has helped me in my transition. There's a lot of things in Division I that I'm not accustomed to. It's not the basketball stuff, it's the stuff surrounding it that is different. He's been invaluable in helping me acclimate to that," Schertz said.

Graves' coaching resume — he was head coach at South Alabama from 2013-18 — is respected by the players too.

"He brings a lot of knowledge to the game. He's been in two national championship games and he's been in the Valley previously. The stuff he has and knows is going to be huge for us," ISU guard Tyreke Key said.

Schertz doesn't mind Graves' border-to-border recruiting connections either.

"He was the first person I thought of when I got this job. I know how important Indiana will be for us. I joke with him that he's the Kevin Bacon of Indiana, there's only a few degrees of separation with anyone in the state. He either played, coached with or against them," Schertz said.

As far as the Sycamores themselves are concerned? One week before ISU plays its first exhibition game against Rose-Hulman, Graves preaches patience. He knows that the learning curve the Sycamores will have this year is steep with a new system and a league that is stacked with star power.

"There's a lot of different messages [the coaches convey] because all of us have had unique experiences, but it comes back to being patient, enjoy the journey and the process," Graves said. "We're starting to see that process come together this fall and it will continue. The product the fans see on Nov. 4 will be vastly different to what they see at Arch Madness in St. Louis."

Graves is looking forward to that process and is excited to get back to what everyone hopes is some semblance of normal during the upcoming college basketball season.

"With COVID last year, there wasn't much opportunity for fans to be around. I'm excited to play in front of a crowd," Graves said. "We'll have fans in the stands who are loud and proud. That's really exciting because it truly is a community environment here. I think this will be a team that Terre Haute and the Wabash Valley community can get behind and support."