First-year Austin coach Phillips orchestrates dramatic turnaround heading into regional

Feb. 16—First-year Austin boys basketball coach Desmond Phillips is 30 years old.

The 2011 Austin graduate is not quite old enough to be a father figure to his players. He's more like a big brother. Along with that status can come some big brother advice.

"Love each other" is what Phillips has used to propel Austin (20-9) on a 12-game winning streak that has them playing in the Northwest Regional.

"I told them early on that I know you love your mama and you would do anything you could for her," Phillips said. "Then I said if you love your teammates, why wouldn't you do anything for them? If we did, just think what we could do."

Like most young brothers, the advice from older brother took a while to click. After hitting the holiday break at 8-9, the Black Bears used team bonding to give Austin fans some of the program's best play in several years.

"I've never been on a closer basketball team," De'Air Young said. "We treat each other like brothers and we care about each other. That's made a big difference on this team.

"Coach Phillips helped make that possible. We all love playing for him. That made the biggest impact on this team."

The Black Bears will face the Hoover Bucs in the regional semifinals. The game was postponed from today because of the threat of severe weather and will be rescheduled at Tom Drake Coliseum in Hanceville.

Young is one of five seniors on the team along with Jeremiah Ayers, Cam Collins, Elijah Thrower and LeNarion Wynn.

When Phillips was named to lead the Black Bears last year, his No. 1 priority was to restore the Austin tradition that has guided the program since it began in the 1960s under Joe Jones.

"Austin basketball is about playing hard, playing defense and playing together," Phillips said. "When we do that, we're playing the Austin way. That's what our community expects."

Phillips experienced the Austin way as a young boy sitting in Joe Jones Gym at the old campus watching games. The son of Kimberly Marshall Walton and Percy Phillips later played on that floor for his coach Demond Garth, who is now the Austin principal.

"I was one of those guys who grew his skills playing at places like the Aquadome and Carrie Matthews," Phillips said. "That's where you developed your game to be able to play at Austin.

"I watched some great players (in the city) like Tae Orr, Jay Sears, Mark Mason, Rico Pickett, Gee Redus and Travis Cohn. Somehow those games always came down to Austin vs. Decatur."

Phillips played for Austin in the Northwest Regional at Wallace in 2009. Hillcrest-Tuscaloosa beat Austin in the finals that year by one point.

"They hit the winning basket on a shot at the buzzer that shouldn't have counted because it came after the buzzer," Phillips said.

The next season Austin got knocked out in the area tournament by eventual state champion Bob Jones.

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Coaching mentor

Phillips continued his basketball career in college with stops at Linwood in Illinois and Spring Hill in Mobile before landing at Dalton State in Georgia to play for Tony Ingle.

"That was the turning point in my basketball career," Phillips said. "Getting to play for Coach Ingle was one of the best things to ever happen to me."

Dalton State won the NAIA national championship in Phillips' one season there in 2015. The championship tournament MVP was Jordan Bowling who played at Brewer.

"Coach Ingle had won for a long time at a lot of different levels," Phillips said. "He cared about his players. A lot of my coaching style comes from him. He had an even keel style of coaching and never exploded at any of his players. He saved that for the officials."

Phillips said Ingle had a favorite phrase that he said to his players just about every day. It was "I love you more than you will ever love me."

"For the longest time that didn't make sense," Phillips said. "We would tell him that wasn't true. When I got into coaching, it started to make sense.

"Coaching is about 10% coaching and 90% everything else. It's about building relationships, and that's helped me through this first season. It's helped our team turn the corner. It's about trusting each other. That's what has made this team go."

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Success with 3-pointers

To advance this far the Black Bears have used a solid defense. In the 12-game winning streak, only one opponent has scored over 60 points. Austin has also developed an offense that features some long-range shooting. The 3-point field goal has become a big part of the attack.

"Over the years the biggest negative about Austin basketball has been that we couldn't shoot the ball," Phillips said. "People always say that Austin plays great defense, but can't shoot. As a former shooting guard that's something I wanted to change."

That doesn't mean Austin has been a team that shied away from attempting 3s. The Black Bears just haven't been particularly efficient behind the 3-point line.

"Last year we were more of dribble (and) drive and then kick it out to an open shooter," Phillips said. "This year it's been more about finding the open shooter."

During the summer, each Austin player was required to shoot 1,000 3-pointers each week at the school gym. Phillips kept track and if you didn't make the number you ran laps.

"I've never shot so many 3s in my life," senior Cam Collins said. "It's made a difference. Teams have to cover all five of us because we all get hot."

The result is a team that can hit the 3 using a variety of players. In the 90-58 blowout of Florence in last week's area tournament, Austin used seven players to hit 13 of 25 attempts from 3-point range.

For the season, Austin averages 18 to 19 attempts from behind the arc while averaging making eight to nine a contest.

Austin will be looking today to claim its first regional victory since 2018. That's when the Black Bears competed in Class 6A for the last season before making the move up to 7A.

"I think we've exceeded a lot of expectations this season," Phillips said. "I'm not surprised. After the way we worked over the summer and fall, there was no question that we would have a good season.

"As someone who grew up here in Decatur and being an alum of the school, I'm really proud of what this team has done."

— david.elwell@decaturdaily.com or 256-340-2395. Twitter @DD_DavidElwell.