North Dakota State head coach Saul Phillips was understandably emotional after his Bison lost their second-round NCAA Tournament game to San Diego State on Saturday.
This was Phillips’ best team in seven seasons as head coach of the Bison, and it was led by a group of star seniors. The team’s top three scorers — Taylor Braun, Marshall Bjorklund and TrayVonn Wright — were all seniors, so Phillips is losing a group of guys who were very special to him. There were six seniors total on the team.
You could see how Phillips felt about his players when he was asked in the postgame press conference about the memories he would take away from the season and week.
Phillips called this week the “greatest professional week” of his life and cried as he recalled how great his players were to coach. As he got emotional discussing his players, he even maintained a sense of humor and joked about how CBS analyst Charles Barkley could make fun of him for crying.
Barkley took it easy on Phillips upon hearing that because he noted how tough it is to lose, though he did manage to zing the coach by saying the reason Phillips was crying is because he has to go back to North Dakota.
Classic Chuck.
