- Todd Phillips is 66-34 with two straight WAC titles and two consecutive 25-win seasons. Utah Valley secured its head coach through March 2030 as the Wolverines begin their first Big West season.
- This story sits inside Utah's basketball lane and connects to the larger statewide sports picture.
- The story is backed by 7 sources and a visible last-verified date.
September 17, 2026
September 17, 2026
5 min / 1,096 words
7 official links
Utah Valley signed men's basketball coach Todd Phillips to a contract extension through March 31, 2030, the university announced Wednesday, September 16. Phillips is 66-34 through three seasons as head coach, with consecutive outright Western Athletic Conference regular-season championships, consecutive 25-win seasons and two straight National Invitation Tournament appearances.
The timing connects the strongest three-year run of Phillips' tenure to a conference move already underway. Utah Valley officially joined the Big West on July 1 and opens its first league basketball schedule at Long Beach State on December 3. Before that first conference game, the Wolverines made sure the coach who won the final two WAC regular-season titles will lead the transition.
Athletic director Jared Sumsion described Phillips as the coach who established a championship standard in Orem. Phillips framed the extension around the next target rather than the two banners already secured: competing for Big West championships and working toward an NCAA Tournament appearance.
A 66-34 record came with program firsts
Phillips became Utah Valley's head coach in 2023 after four seasons on the staff, first as an assistant and then as associate head coach. Utah Valley's release says he became the fastest coach in program history to reach 60 victories. He is also the only Wolverines coach to win back-to-back conference championships or produce consecutive 25-win seasons.
The matching win totals hide how repeatable the last two seasons were. Utah Valley finished 25-9 in 2024-25, won the WAC outright and reached the conference tournament championship game before accepting an NIT berth. The Wolverines went 25-9 again in 2025-26, finished 14-4 in conference play, earned the WAC Tournament's No. 1 seed, lost the title game to California Baptist 63-61 and reached the NIT for a second straight year.
That second season included a 104-101 double-overtime win at Utah Tech in the regular-season finale to secure the outright title. In the WAC semifinal, Utah Valley beat UT Arlington 67-65 after Jackson Holcombe made the go-ahead free throws with 19 seconds remaining and Isaac Hawkins supplied a late defensive stop. Those results put the Wolverines in the championship game for a second consecutive March.
The UCCU Center became a reliable advantage
Utah Valley went 15-0 at the UCCU Center during the 2025-26 regular season and 9-0 there in WAC play. The NIT home game against George Washington, a 79-78 loss, was the first home defeat of the year, leaving the Wolverines 15-1 in Orem for the full season and 27-1 at home across the past two seasons.
The official NIT preview listed that 27-game home winning streak as the fourth-longest active run in the nation at the time. It also gave the postseason roster a local face: redshirt sophomore Jackson Holcombe entered the NIT averaging 15.6 points and 7.1 rebounds, while redshirt junior Trevan Leonhardt was averaging 12.1 points, 5.5 rebounds and 6.0 assists.
The final statistics show the team identity behind the home record. Utah Valley averaged a program-record 80.1 points, shot a program-record .501 from the field and set another team record with 630 assists. The Wolverines averaged 18.5 assists and 9.4 steals per game; the extension release ranked those marks seventh and sixth nationally, respectively, while the .501 field-goal percentage ranked 11th.
Those numbers came with a clear possession style. Utah Valley assisted on 630 baskets, forced more turnovers than it committed and finished with a plus-11.4 scoring margin. Phillips' last WAC team did not depend on one narrow formula to win: it scored efficiently, shared the ball, created steals and defended the UCCU Center.
The Big West schedule changes the map
Utah Valley is one of three full members that joined the Big West for 2026-27, alongside California Baptist and Sacramento State. The conference now has 12 full members, and Utah Valley returns Big West competition to the state for the first time since Utah State ended its membership in 2005.
The Wolverines' first schedule in the league begins at home against Western Colorado on November 2. Road games at Weber State on November 7 and Nevada on November 14 follow before Utah Valley travels to the U.S. Virgin Islands for the Paradise Jam. The first-round opponent there is East Carolina on November 20.
Conference play opens at Long Beach State on December 3. Sacramento State comes to the UCCU Center on December 5 for Utah Valley's first Big West home game, and the regular season ultimately closes with road games at Cal Poly and UC Santa Barbara. The Big West Championship is scheduled for March 10-13 in Henderson, Nevada.
That is a different travel and opponent profile from the WAC. California road swings replace many of the former league trips, while the local nonconference date at Weber State keeps one in-state matchup on the November calendar. The extension gives the roster one constant as almost every conference reference point changes.
Phillips' Utah route runs through SLCC and Orem
Before joining Utah Valley's staff in 2019, Phillips spent eight seasons as head coach at Salt Lake Community College. He guided the Bruins to the 2016 NJCAA national championship, a stop that ties Utah Valley's current run to the state's junior-college system.
His move from SLCC to assistant coach, then associate head coach and finally head coach at Utah Valley gives the extension a distinctly local coaching path. The new agreement does not start a rebuild or hand the program to an outsider before a league change. It keeps the coach who has worked inside the program since 2019 and led its final two WAC regular-season championship runs.
The first Big West season will measure the next step directly. Utah Valley has the coach, the recent home record and an offense coming off multiple program records. Beginning December 3, those strengths move into a new standings table.
Key facts:
- Extension: Todd Phillips will lead Utah Valley men's basketball through March 31, 2030
- Head-coaching record: 66-34 through three seasons
- Conference results: Back-to-back outright WAC regular-season championships, plus two consecutive WAC Tournament championship-game appearances, both of which Utah Valley lost
- Postseason: Two straight NIT berths, including a 79-78 home loss to George Washington in 2026
- 2025-26 record: 25-9 overall, 14-4 in the WAC
- Home record: 15-1 in 2025-26 and 27-1 across the past two seasons
- Program records in 2025-26: 80.1 points per game, .501 field-goal percentage and 630 assists
- Conference move: Utah Valley became a full Big West member on July 1, 2026
- First Big West game: December 3 at Long Beach State
- First Big West home game: December 5 against Sacramento State at the UCCU Center
- Big West Championship: March 10-13, 2027, in Henderson, Nevada
