Utah Valley University Athletic Director Dr. Jared Sumsion named Todd Phillips as the new men’s basketball head coach on Thursday afternoon. The move comes eight days after the announced departure of four-year head coach Mark Madsen to the University of California – Berkeley Golden Bears for the same position.
Todd Phillips coached under Mark Madsen all four years Madsen coached at UVU, a span in which the Wolverines went 70-51 in 121 games played. Initially brought on as an assistant coach in 2019, Phillips was promoted to Associate Head Coach in 2021, the position he has coached at for the past two seasons.
Phillips will be taking over a team coming off its best campaign in program history where the Wolverines made it to the semifinals in the National Invitational Tournament and accumulated an impressive overall record of 28-9. UVU also won the Western Athletic Conference regular season title.
However, this isn’t his first time taking over a college program. Prior to his arrival at UVU, Phillips was the head coach for the Salt Lake Community College Bruins for eight years.
With the Bruins, Phillips won the National Junior College Athletic Association National Championship in 2016, three Southwestern Athletic Conference regular season titles, four Region 18 Tournament titles, and clinched four berths to the NJCAA Tournament. Not to mention, Phillips had a dominant 205-58 record overall coaching at SLCC, or a 77.9% win percentage, and won NJCAA Coach of the Year during the Bruins’ 2015-16 NJCAA title run while winning three SWAC Coach of the Year awards.
Phillips also notably won over the locker room and the trust of the players. Before the Wolverines’ NIT semifinal matchup against the University of Alabama – Birmingham, the players gathered around the middle of the court amid the rumors of Madsen leaving for Cal, and potentially not making it to the game due to the possible birth of his child, and chanted their support of Phillips.
In short, Phillips is more than qualified for the job and has a great track record of taking his teams to great heights.
Phillips will now look to help UVU build off its magical 2022-23 campaign heading into next season and to bolster a roster that has already seen five players hit the transfer portal. Brice Larson, the host of the UVU Coaches Show and UVU basketball games on ESPN 960 AM radio, reported that Le’Tre Darthard, Tim Ceasar, Jaden McClanahan, Justin Harmon, and Cam Alford have all put their names into the transfer portal and that more players could be following suit.
However, given Phillips’ success previously and track record of developing players, the Wolverines should still be in great shape in a new era of UVU basketball.
The hiring of Phillips also marks the fourth men’s basketball head coach hired in the era of UVU being an NCAA Division I program.
