Ohio’s new men’s basketball coach Saul Phillips has energy that’s infectious.
It could be felt when the former North Dakota State coach arrived for his introductory news conference Tuesday at The Convo.
“He just lit up the room the minute he came in,” Director of Athletics Jim Schaus said regarding his initial interview with Phillips. “I love that. I love anybody like that for any job.”
Phillips, the 18th coach in the program’s history, entered the room with a good deal of family members and friends filing into the back of the room, dwarfing the number of media members in attendance.
“Obviously, our strategy is to have our family outnumber here so that nothing bad could happen,” Phillips said. “Any tough questions, I have my army back there.”
He introduced his wife, Nicole, as “proof that he can recruit for Bobcat nation.”
“She was a former Miss Wisconsin, I kid you not,” Phillips said. “It was a 15 (seed), two (seed) upset, 16 (beating) ones don’t happen.”
But behind all of the jokes was an enthusiasm that reverberated throughout the room, something junior guard Stevie Taylor likes about his new coach.
“We’re very similar,” Taylor said. “The way I play, energetic with a lot of energy, real passion about the game. He’s the same way. To have a coach, we can both reflect that on the court. That’s going to be really good for our chemistry.”
As he preached in previous interviews, Phillips sees Ohio as somewhere he wants to be for a very long time, adding he wants his daughter, who is in fourth grade, to graduate from high school in Athens.
Phillips also wants to bring local talent to Athens and focus on finding players in the region that fit his style of basketball.
And he said it wouldn’t be all that hard to attract players to the program, recalling when he was recently driving up to campus with future assistant Jason Kemp and found himself awestruck by the school’s beauty.
“This is college. I can sell this. This is great,” Phillips said. “I look around and I say, ‘This is what you want to be a part of.’ What’s there not to like? You talk college town? This is a postcard for a college town.”
In terms of on-the-court strategy and style, Phillips said he’s had teams in the top third and bottom third in tempo; what will matter most to him offensively is avoiding turnovers. Defensively, he said Ohio is going to play man-to-man.
“These kids have been through a lot of coaches in a short period of time and I’m going to temper some of what I do to what they do,” he said.
Monday night, Phillips met with the players to explain what he’s about and that he knows it’s rough adjusting to a new coach.
“I think he did a real good job of really letting us know how it is in this business and what it’s going to be like for next year,” Taylor said. “He kept it real with us. I feel like he didn’t blow smoke. He just really told us what it’s going to be and a lot of us are really on board to get started for next year.”
The process in which Phillips was hired happened fairly quickly, with Schaus going through the Atlanta-based Parker Executive Search to aid in finding a qualified candidate to take over the program.
Phillips was first contacted on Friday at 4 p.m. while he was in Dallas for the Final Four and was asked to interview at 6 p.m. Saturday, negotiations between both parties intensified during the first Final Four game and the deal was all but finished during the second game.
Schaus hadn’t used a search firm in his previous hires at Ohio, but decided this was a time when help was needed to get the hire done quickly and professionally. He also said it cost somewhere around $50,000-$60,000 to use the search firm.
Phillips has agreed to a contract where he will receive an annual salary of $550,000 for five years.
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