Phillips gets his second UTC senior day
Everything during Joshua Phillips’ career at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga has fallen into place.
The 6-foot-8, 245-pound senior — the lone player being honored today by the men’s basketball team before its 5 p.m. game against Wofford — came to UTC in the summer of 2016 wanting a change after playing basketball at Middle Tennessee State Univesity for three years. He chose to play football, where in two seasons with the Mocs he recorded 11 tackles, two for loss, and two quarterback hurries while helping the program to 12 wins and a Football Championship Subdivision playoff appearance in 2016.
Yet so many times he was seen observing UTC basketball practices, seemingly with a desire to give it one more shot, to try to be a better version of the player he was at MTSU.
Joining the basketball team in late November, less than a week after football season ended, Phillips wasn’t sure what to expect, but he was thrust quickly onto the court with the Mocs already reeling with a season injury to freshman Justin Brown. Four days after Phillips’ first game, freshman Duane Moss joined Brown on the injury list, and while their injuries weren’t season-ending, junior Makinde London and freshman James Lewis also missed time, meaning Phillips went from being expected to contribute 15 minutes of hard-nosed basketball a game to playing twice as much, without the same level of preseason conditioning his teammates had been afforded.
He enters today’s game — the back end of a Wofford-UTC doubleheader with the women playing at 2 — averaging 9.5 points and 6.0 rebounds per game, which if Phillips had played in at least 75 percent of the team’s games would rank him 29th and sixth in the Southern Conference, respectively. His 57 percent shooting rate would lead the league.
Pretty good for a guy who played a total of 401 minutes in 65 games at MTSU, scoring 83 points and grabbing 107 rebounds.
“He’s got a big body and is a little harder to move around down there,” UTC coach Lamont Paris said this week. “On the offensive end he can physically challenge guys in a way that some of our other guys can’t. He helps with rebounding and is a really good help defender, and I’ve been pleasantly surprised with that. He takes charges — uncommon for a big guy with his
size — plays as hard as he can, has good energy and has a good vibe to him on the court.
“He’s a physical presence, which is something this team needs.”
Phillips has made great progress, to the point that Paris wondered out loud recently how good he could be with an additional year with the program. He’s had to learn a lot on the court and off it, having been suspended for three games in December for a violation of team rules.
It was at that point that he wondered if he’d ever play for the team again.
“I was here for a week or two, playing good and feeling good. I was happy again,” Phillips said. “The night I got in trouble, I thought I was going to lose everything, but I’m blessed Coach gave me another opportunity to play, and I hope that I made him proud and live up to what he really wants me to be for the team.”
Now Phillips gets the rare opportunity to have his second senior day in the same school year. With the Mocs coming off a tough road loss to Furman in which starting point guard Rodney Chatman was injured, the numbers deck remains stacked against the team, but effort has never lacked and Phillips for one hopes that gives his team a chance.
“I’m just going to go out there and play hard,” he said. “Being the only senior, that makes it much more exciting to me, that much more love shown to me. The fans here are great, probably better than the fans at MT. The fans at MT show a lot of love, too, but even though we have a losing record they’re still coming to the games, still loud, still support us, still do everything. When it’s an away game, they’re still outside waiting on the bus at 2 in the morning, still showing love to us.
“The fans here have shown me a lot of love and I appreciate all the love, and I think senior day will be good.”
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress. com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenleytfp.