Ahead of the 2018-19 season, The Post sat down with Ohio coach Saul Phillips to discuss the upcoming campaign and his personnel. Phillips enters his fifth season at the helm of the Bobcats, who have held practices for the past two weeks. Ohio tips off the season Nov. 3 against Rio Grande in an exhibition in the The Convo.
Here are a few highlights from the conversation:
Nonconference thoughts
As it is every season, Ohio’s nonconference schedule looks to give the Bobcats some early-season tests and some easy wins. Phillips acknowledged the excitement of playing the Jersey Mike’s Jamaica Classic, starting a home-and-home series with Purdue and taking on in-state rival Xavier.
That matchup with the Musketeers will be the first time since the 2008-2009 season that the two teams have met. The Bobcats lead the all-time series 20-14.
“It’s certainly an area where we recruit a little bit,” Phillips said about the trip to Cincinnati. “A, if you’ve got to go on the road where some of your fans and alumni base can get to. And B, to have it on a place where you don’t have to get on a real long bus ride or a jet ride. It’ll be nice.”
Phillips joked that the trip to Xavier will be a chance to see former Bobcat walk-on Sam Frayer, who is in his first season as a graduate assistant with the Musketeers.
The home nonconference schedule features matchups against 2018 NCAA Tournament qualifiers Iona, Marshall and Radford in The Convo. It is Marshall’s first trip to Athens since the 2015-2016 season, and it’s the last trip Iona will take to Athens in part of its contract with the Bobcats.
“With all these new guys, it may be nicer to have a softer schedule, but I do want our guys to be prepared and I think that’ll do it,” he said. “It’s our schedule. We’re playing it either way.”
Early impressions of personnel
A season removed from one of the worst bouts of injuries they could've ever anticipated, the Bobcats are quite healthy.
The only true question mark is the status of Jordan Dartis, who is coming off an offseason during which he had surgery on both hips.
Still, Phillips has seven new faces on this squad and will return Jason Carter and Ben Vander Plas, both of whom picked up season-ending injuries last season.
“Throughout the preseason, there’s going to be some trial and error,” Phillips said. “There’s going to be times where some things work and we go back to it and some things that just don’t work.”
Early on, junior college transfer Antonio Cowart has been the standout. The junior guard from Southwest Mississippi Community College has helped Teyvion Kirk mature a lot after his breakout freshman season.
For Phillips, he loves to see his players grow from year to year. The best example of that may be senior forward Doug Taylor, who has completely rebuilt himself physically throughout his four years in Athens.
“It’s a really, really rewarding part of my job is to witness a guy who figures things out,” Phillips said. “He definitely falls into that camp in every capacity of his life, from leadership to the way he carries himself.”
Questions about the future
Phillips is entering the final season of the initial five-year deal he signed back in 2014 when he took the Ohio job. He doesn’t comment on contract matters — not to evade questions, but because he doesn’t want to speak about it openly.
Still, it remains a question entering a season in which he’ll see his first full recruiting class graduate. The contract will expire May 18, and he’s set to make $581,107.80 this season.
Throughout his four years at Ohio, Phillips is 67-60 in regular season games and 34-38 in the Mid-American Conference. Last season, his team failed to make the MAC Tournament quarterfinals for the first time since 2015, his first year as coach.
Phillips has never coached a team in the last season of his contract before.
