Miller excited for 'Field of 68' Marathon
MBB: Murray State will open the season November 3rd against Omaha
In one of college basketball’s worst kept secrets, The Field of 68 announced last Tuesday Murray State would open the season November 3rd against Omaha as part of The Field of 68’s Opening Day Marathon. For Murray State Head Coach Ryan Miller, last week’s announcement was months in the making.
“When I got the job, one of the first phone calls I got was from Jeff Goodman and Rob Dauster at The Field of 68,” Miller said. “They started that event last year at the Sioux Falls (South Dakota) Pentagon, and they wanted us to be there. I thought it'd be an awesome opportunity for particularly me and our staff and our players. It's an awesome event. I've played up there a couple times as a coach. With UNLV, we played USC a few years ago. A couple years ago at Creighton, we played BYU. It's an awesome venue. People in South Dakota love basketball, and it'll be good to be home close to friends and family.”
Last year, The Field of 68’s Opening Day Showcase featured six teams and three games played in Sioux Falls. This year, the event has expanded to 12 teams, bringing college basketball fans a half-dozen games from two different cities — Rock Hill, South Carolina and Sioux Falls, South Dakota — on the sport’s first day.
For Miller, his Racers will play an Omaha team he’s very familiar with. In his four years at Creighton, the Blue Jays never faced the Mavericks, but Miller watched Omaha develop into a championship program from right down the street.
“I spent four years in Omaha, coaching Creighton,” Miller said. “Being able to play Omaha, the crosstown college team, it's pretty exciting, and we're pretty excited about the challenge. It's going to be an unbelievable challenge for us. They won the Summit League last year pretty handily. They were an NCAA Tournament team, so we have a challenge on opening night on a neutral site floor. It'll be a lot of fun.”
Murray State has played Omaha just one other time in program history. The Racers beat the Mavericks, 86-62, on March 24, 2014 in the second round of the CIT — a tournament Murray State went on to win with freshman Cameron Payne leading the way.