STORRS, CONN. – The South Dakota State campus in Brookings was about 1,500 miles away, but Aaron Johnston looked right at home Friday.
He used the word “comfortable” a lot. His players are comfortable in their system. He’s comfortable with the adjustments they make in the middle of a game. His family is comfortable in Brookings. After 28 years at South Dakota State, the coach has earned the right to be comfortable. But comfort is not the same as complacent.
Johnston joined the men’s basketball staff at South Dakota State in 1997. In 1999, he moved to the women’s program, and by 2000 he was coach of the program he still leads. Back then, South Dakota State was a Division II school. The Jackrabbits dominated at that level, going to three consecutive Elite Eights and winning a national title in 2003 before becoming a Division I program in 2004. Since then, South Dakota State has played in 13 NCAA Tournaments. Maybe that’s why Johnston looks so comfortable. Being here, on this stage, is nothing new. A first-round tournament game must seem awfully ordinary when you’ve done it so many times.
“From our first Division I victories to now building to a team that wants to be top 25 consistently: That’s quite a steep trajectory, really, in a pretty short period of time,” he said. “We’ve done it with great people. We’ve had so many good players over the years that have come to South Dakota State, stayed at South Dakota State, helped us build a tradition of success there, and this team is no different.”
It was the day before 10th-seeded South Dakota State was slated to play seventh-seeded Oklahoma State, and Johnston is at ease with whatever happens. He knows how good his team is. They finished the regular season with just three losses, going undefeated in the Summit League. Oklahoma State coach Jacie Hoyt also knows what she’s up against. Before she took the Cowgirls’ coaching job in 2022, Hoyt spent five years in the Summit League coaching Kansas City.
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“I think it’s about the toughest draw we could have gotten for the 10 seed,” she said Friday. “I have just so much respect for the program. They know how to win. They are very well-coached. They’re incredibly fundamentally sound.”
Saturday, that well-coached, fundamentally sound team handed Hoyt and Oklahoma State a 74-68 loss. Midway through the third quarter, the Cowgirls looked ready to run away with it, leading by 11 points. But on the sideline, Johnston was relaxed. Well, as relaxed as a basketball coach can be. He was comfortable being nervous.
“Whatever worry level I have, it stays pretty much the same,” he said. “I probably was equally as worried when we were up eight or nine in the second half. I don’t get too up or down.”
At halftime, South Dakota State trailed by seven, but Johnston didn’t give an impassioned speech. Later, when the Cowgirls took their 11-point lead with 7:38 left in the third quarter, Johnston didn’t even call a timeout.
“I don’t ever feel like there’s some big speech or timeout or big halftime talk that has to flip the switch with the group,” he said. “I think everybody watching would say at times we didn’t play well, but we were really composed. I didn’t feel like there was ever a time where we looked rattled and got out of our comfort zone.”
There’s that word again. Comfort. It comes from 25 years of coaching the same program, living in the same place, playing in front of the same fans. There aren’t many similarities between South Dakota State and UConn, the team the Jackrabbits will play in the second round, but there definitely is one. Geno Auriemma and Johnston are two of the longest-tenured coaches in women’s college basketball. In a sport where jumping from program to program is common for players and coaches, Auriemma and Johnston found one place that worked for them and got comfortable enough to make it a long-term relationship.
“It’s been a great fit for me but also for my family,” Johnston said. “There’s a lot of things that go into these choices. It’s not always just about specifically the job or what the next job is or the pieces that make up a good job. There’s a lot of things on the court that are important but (some things) off the court that are really important, too. South Dakota State has been a great home and a great place to be for my family.”
His players feel the same way. Turnover has become common in college basketball over the past few years, with an estimated 1,400 players in the transfer portal after 2024. But it hasn’t impacted South Dakota State. The players Johnston recruits end up staying four years.
“We just haven’t had players in the transfer portal very often. It’s very rare for us,” he said. “And when you watch our team compete, we have so many really, really good players.”
Junior forward Brooklyn Meyer, who had 19 points and eight rebounds in the win over Oklahoma State, is one of those players. The Summit League Player of the Year turned down Power Five offers to play at South Dakota State, which is about 80 miles from her hometown of Larchwood, Iowa. For Meyer, South Dakota State was always the school. She grew up watching the Jackrabbits, just like most of her teammates.
“Every kid on the team grew up watching the previous teams, probably went to camps. They’re like a bunch of well-trained robots out there,” Hoyt said. “It’s just so impressive the way they keep those kids there, the way that they all seem to just be bought into South Dakota State women’s basketball.”
Monday, South Dakota State will play No. 2 seed UConn, which defeated Arkansas State 103-34 in the first round. “They’re pretty good,” Johnston said with a smile. Still, Johnston remains calm. Because, once again, his program has been here before. They advanced to the second round two seasons ago, and four other times before that, even making the Sweet Sixteen in 2019. Plus, they’ve played top-tier teams before, scheduling programs like South Carolina and Texas in recent seasons.
“We’ve played teams certainly at that level, and it is hard,” Johnston said matter-of-factly. “But there’s no place I would rather be on Monday, either. That’s why we do this. That’s why we put so much into this, to have those challenges. I know our players are going to feel the exact same way.”
Johnston is comfortable with whatever comes next.
