Phillips adds Kemp as assistant
Saul Phillips is making sure there will be as little change as possible in the NDSU men’s basketball program.
On Tuesday, he hired Jason Kemp, a graduate manager at NDSU for the past two seasons, as a full-time assistant coach.
“I couldn’t think of a better group of coaches and players to be with, especially as a young coach,” said Kemp, 25.
Kemp is the second assistant coach Phillips has hired since becoming head coach in late March.
Phillips named Dave Richman, who was an assistant under former-head coach Tim Miles, associate head coach on March 27.
Todd Koering, another assistant under Miles, has said he is not returning to the team.
Phillips said the third assistant coach will be named in the coming weeks.
“Part of the constraints as why it is taking a little while is just the process of human recourses posting open positions,” Phillips said. “I have had over 100 applicants so you need to legally go through the right channels to do it the right way.”
Phillips said he has gone through and graded the 100-plus applications on different aspects of coaching using a checklist.
Of the applicants, he said there
are “about five” he could see himself hiring.
As a graduate manager under Miles, Kemp was involved in many aspects of the program, but was restricted to how much he could do.
Kemp said he helped Richman the past two years when dealing with the players’ academics and expects he will be taking on more in that role now in addition to more recruiting.
“I am pretty excited to have the opportunity to play a bigger role,” Kemp said.
Kemp graduated in December with a master’s degree in sports management.
“I tried hard to hustle up and (graduate) because I knew an opportunity, here or somewhere else, would be available for me,” Kemp said.
Kemp played at Wisconsin-La Crosse. At Wisconsin-La Crosse, he played for current Minnesota State Moorhead head coach Stu Engen.
After he finished playing, he became an assistant for Engen at MSUM.
“Coach Engen kept me on the path to becoming a coach,” Kemp said.
Kemp said he began considering a career in coaching when he was a junior in high school when he played for Tracy Webster, who is now an assistant at Illinois.
“His drive to succeed really drove me into coaching,” Kemp said of Webster.
With the hiring of Kemp and Richman, the team has a young core of coaches. Richman is just 28 and Phillips is 34.
“We plan on being here as long as they will let us stay,” Kemp said.