Phillips’ plan for NDSU
Saul Phillips was named the new NDSU men’s basketball head coach on March 26. He replaced Tim Miles, who took a head coaching position at Colorado State. Spectrum Sports Editor Todd Deutsch recently caught up with Phillips to get to know him and learn his ideas for the program.
Todd Deutsch: What were you thinking when Tim Miles first told you he was going to Colorado State?
Saul Phillips: I was thinking I want to stay here. We were prepared for this a little more with what happened last season at UNC-Wilmington.
He never took the job then so it never got that far, but I had a pretty good idea what people were thinking in the athletic department with what direction they wanted to go.
Gene (Taylor) was in contact with me immediately after Tim left and that calmed me down at that point. All I wanted to do was sit down with Gene and let him see my plan for this program. Also, with this group I didn’t want to be done coaching these players.
TD: In your interview with AD Gene Taylor, how did you sell your idea for the future of theprogram?
SP: To be honest, I had about a 20-page booklet and we paged through it together. It went through all aspects of the program. It was a pretty easy sell in that all of us have had a role in getting us to where we are.
Our plan when we started making this transition didn’t end after last season. I just informed him about what we have been trying to do all along, because it’s working.
We aren’t trying to re-invent the wheel, I just reaffirmed what we wanted to do and get him touched on every aspect from offensive and defensive philosophy, discipline, recruiting and scheduling to give Gene an idea. When we walked out of the meeting, I felt really good.
TD: Four years ago when you came here as an assistant, what intrigued you about coaching at NDSU?
SP: The chance to build a program from scratch, you don’t get many of those. We had nothing, no Division I history. To be able to take a group all the way through. I liked Miles’ energy. I knew it was going to be tough to turn around but I really thought the last challenge I needed as an assistant before I was ready to be a head coach was something like this, where I was completely in charge of player development. To be completely trusted in taking a group through development was something I hadn’t done yet and the opportunity was too good for me to pass up. It also worked out great for my family too.
TD: Now as a head coach, what are the biggest differences in your life?
SP: As far as my relationship with the guys, I don’t think it has been too different. If they were dogging it I told them, if they were playing really good, I told them. Coaching is coaching to some extent, so it hasn’t been too different yet. The biggest difference is I woke up a few nights ago at 4:30 in the morning and I had a dream we were playing IPFW and it was 28-14 at the half, we were winning, thank god. When I woke up it really hit me that this is OK. You start to get excited and I ended up watching tapes from 5-7 a.m.
TD: What is the most important thing you learned from Tim Miles?
SP: The neatest thing with going through it with Miles was to see a guy implement a long-term plan and then carrying it out to not only achieve it, but exceed it. To be honest, if you would have asked me where we would be at this point, we would be a couple games over .500. 20 wins? That’s too much. It wasn’t that long ago that we were reading articles in the paper about how Miles would never survive the transition. It doesn’t seem too long ago.
TD: What is the most important thing you learned from Wisconsin coach Bo Ryan?
SP: The consistency. Treating every game the same. Literally, if you were to watch Bo in his pre-game preparation, the way he acts during the game is the same every game. His approach when they played North Dakota State was the exact same as how he would get his team ready for Michigan State. The other thing I learned from him is that without a doubt, basketball is basketball. When I played for him at Wisconsin-Platteville (Division III) we ran the entirely same thing. You could take someone from my team and throw him in a Wisconsin practice right now, and they would know what they were doing. The simplicity in approach with Bo is a pretty neat concept. To know that works at the Division III level, at the mid-major level (Ryan and Phillips coached together at Wisconsin-Milwaukee) and now at the highest level that is something that sticks with you as a coach.
TD: How do you want this program to look in five years?
SP: We have gained some attention over the past few years, but I want people to say that we are consistently good. We need to be able to go on the road and consistently win games. Last year against Eastern Michigan showed us we aren’t there. We need to be competing for the Mid-Con championships and continue to get good players coming through here.