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SIOUX FALLS, S.D. – After a practice session last week at Chaifetz Pavilion, St. Louis University center Robbie Avila sat down on a folding chair and talked strategy.

“Any weakness I see, I’m attacking,� he said. “That’s the game plan: attack the weaknesses.�

Avila, the 6-foot, 10-inch trigger for SLU’s offense, wasn’t talking about the team’s approach to its season-opening basketball game against Santa Clara on Monday afternoon or any other opponent on the Billikens’ schedule or his worldview. Avila was talking about his interpersonal dealings with his coach, Josh Schertz.

It is a different kind of player-coach relationship that Avila and Schertz have. Schertz makes fun of Avila. Avila makes fun of Schertz. It is a give-and-take, a back-and-forth, the comedy team of Auerbach and Costello. There’s Schertz making fun of his star player’s lack of speed or vertical leap. There’s Avila joking about Schertz’s height.

“What are your thoughts on the new rule that they made for Halloween that you have to be at least 5 feet, 1 inch to go trick-or-treating?� Avila asked him on Thursday, standing in the back of a group of reporters while Schertz talked about the season.

Schertz marveled at how a sprained ankle had somehow made Avila faster.

It doesn’t take long to figure out that these two are made for each other.

“I think we’re able to both probably take what we do really seriously but not take ourselves too seriously,� Schertz said. “I think we both see the value of humor in a long season and that keeping things light and really having an environment where certainly there’s a high level of work, but also that you can have fun, and that is not taboo, and that as a head coach or a star player, that we can laugh at ourselves and, hopefully, that that kind of permeates the group, but I think there’s a great overlap.�

“We’re cut from the same thread, the same cloth,� Avila said. “We share the same ideas. Our personality traits kind of match up. And so I think that’s why we get along so well.�

It took a while for Avila to get comfortable sparring with his coach. He didn’t walk in as a freshman at Indiana State and start doing it. At the start, it was more of a one-way street, with Schertz making the jokes. But by the end of Avila’s freshman season ...

“That’s the point where I was done with it,� he said. “So I started throwing some jazz back. I say, it’s all out of love. So I think when we find somebody like that, you’re able to do that, it makes things a lot more fun.�

“He was a little quiet when he got there,� Schertz said. “But I think as it went on, you could see early you could bust his chops and get on him. You could still coach Robbie hard, like in practice or if he screws up in a game, if I got to get on him or yell at him or bench him, he takes it. He never acts like I can’t, but you can see early he’s got a really good disposition.�

It’s the relationship on the court that all the fuss is about at SLU. Schertz was hired away from Indiana State to rekindle the program after going to the NCAA Tournament once in eight seasons under Travis Ford. Two of his top players at Indiana State, Avila and Isaiah Swope, followed him.

A good match

If Schertz and Avila are a good combination off the court, they are even better on the court. Schertz’s offense, which revolves around 3-point shots and layups, is perfectly suited for Avila, a 6-10 center who can make layups, make 3-point shots and pass the ball to create those opportunities for his teammates as well. If one were to sit down and draw up the perfect player to run Schertz’s offense, it would be Avila.

“Definitely,� Avila said. “It’s a high pace kind of five-out, four-in system, just being able to showcase pretty much everything I can do is what the offense is designed for me to do. When he recruited me coming out of high school, the biggest point is that, I’m going to have the ball in my hands a lot, and I’m going to be able to facilitate, be able to shoot, be able to get other guys open. So kind of use a little bit of everything in my game that I’m pretty good at.�

“Absolutely,� said Schertz. “He’s the perfect a guy in terms of he brings ability at 6-10 to space the floor. That’s huge in our offense, because of the gravity he brings, the ability to get the ‘bigs’ away from the basket and have them guard on the perimeter. But then, obviously, his ball handling, his passing. He’s a tremendous passer. His ability to read the game, his size. He can see over everybody. He can put the ball on the ground. So he’s mobile, getting the ball from place to place. Understands the offense at the highest level. So he’s really a savant in terms of his basketball IQ.

“When you look at it like what he brings the table, there’s not really a huge weakness on the offensive end that you would point to and say, he really can’t do this. He does everything well. He’s getting better with his back to the basket. That’s probably the area of growth for him the most. But in terms of all the stuff he does, you’d be hard pressed to find a guy that can do more things at an elite level on the offensive end then Robbie and that for our system, has really been good.�

Puzzle to solve

So much about the team remains unclear.

Only three players, the ever-present Gibson Jimerson, Kellen Thames and Larry Hughes II, are back from last season. Avila and Swope arrived from Indiana State; forward Kalu Anya is a transfer from Brown; guard Kobe Johnson arrived from West Virginia; guard Josiah Dotzler, who missed the two preseason games because of a foot injury but is good to go, is from Creighton; forward A.J. Casey is from Miami. (For Monday’s season opener, at least, the starting five should be Avila, Swope, Jimerson, Johnson and Anya in the game that is to be streamed for free on the at 2 p.m.)

The familiarity Avila and Swope have with the offense has helped, and Avila has taken over the leadership role on the team.

“I think I’ve seen us everywhere from middle of the pack in the A-10 to top 25 in the country,� Schertz said. “We’ve talked about internally what is possible, and I think that’s really where the focus needs to be because it’s possible that certainly we could become that good and be what people expect on the high end. And certainly it’s possible that we could be as bad as people think we’re going to be. It all depends on how we work, how we come together, how we focus on every day.�

And, he hopes, do it with a smile.