Shembari Phillips came to Georgia Tech as a transfer from Tennessee, bringing with him ambitions of playing a lot of minutes for a team on the rise. He leaves as another example of how things don’t always work out as planned, and not always for the worse.
“I feel like when you hit adversity – you expect things to go one way and it goes another – it makes you grow in a sense,” Phillips said. “You learn things about yourself that you probably didn’t know.”
If things work out his way Friday night, Phillips will get some playing time at Clemson in the Yellow Jackets’ final game of the season, as the school withdrew its appeal of its postseason ban for NCAA recruiting violations. If he does, he’ll have played in 15 games in his final season with the Jackets, probably for less than 80 minutes. Nine teammates have played more minutes.
It followed a junior season in which he played a little more but still not much – 222 minutes in 20 games.
“It was disappointing in the two years that I was eligible to play,” Phillips said. “It was definitely disappointing. But, on the contrary, I’m a team player.”
Phillips, a graduate of powerhouse Wheeler High, played amply in his first two colleges seasons, at Tennessee. But he transferred home in the summer of 2017, after the Jackets’ had reached the NIT finals in coach Josh Pastner’s first season. When star guard Josh Okogie left for the NBA after the following season, it seemed to open up a slot for Phillips.
He had shown flashes of scoring pop at Tennessee, and then was a terror on the scout team in the year he sat out as a transfer. Pastner put him in the starting lineup for the first six games of the 2018-19 season, four against mid-major teams. Playing an average of 19.7 minutes, Phillips scored a total of 28 points, making 11 of 27 shots. In the sixth game, he went scoreless in 21 minutes, not what a team desperately in need of scoring could afford from one of its starting guards.
He didn’t start again that season, and played only intermittently thereafter, a role that continued into this season as guards Jose Alvarado and Michael Devoe have consumed most of the guard minutes, joined by Bubba Parham this season.
“I came in and I wasn’t putting up the numbers I was probably expected to put up,” Phillips said. “I kept working, kept working, kept working, waiting on another opportunity. Every once in awhile, I got another opportunity, came in and just tried my best. But if things didn’t go in my favor, things didn’t go in my favor.”
“I wish I could have gotten him more playing time,” Pastner said. “However, the stars didn’t align. That’s all. But he’s a good basketball player.”
Phillips said that people in his circle wanted him to get mad and lash out. But he did not. It wasn’t him, and he didn’t see the value.
“If I’m down, if I have a (bad) attitude, then that’s going to rub off on others, one,” he said. “Two, it’s going to make me look, for lack of a better word, like a bad person. So that’s my thing. That’s not in my character.”
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Last summer, he took an internship at Barton Executive Search. A company vice president could relate to him more than most – former Jackets star Ismail Muhammad. Muhammad was ready to be a big brother for Phillips, to be a listening ear for his intern’s playing-time gripes.
It wasn’t necessary, because Phillips, according to Muhammad, has never uttered a single word of complaint, not that summer or in the months since as he has continued with Barton.
“I actually think I’m a positive person, and he blows me out,” Muhammad said. “I wouldn’t have been able to handle it the way he has, and I don’t think many could. It’s been quite impressive.”
Phillips has channeled his energy into practice, trying to raise the Jackets’ level of competitiveness. His unselfishness was recognized Wednesday night when the team celebrated Phillips and fellow senior James Banks for senior night. Phillips’ teammates urged Pastner to start Phillips. It’s commonplace at many schools to honor seniors with a start, even just for a few possessions, but Pastner had never done it in his first 10 seasons as a head coach, unwilling to risk even a single possession with a different lineup.
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But, with Tech’s season ending prematurely, Pastner relented, then asked who would give up his place for Phillips. Alvarado stepped forward. Phillips played the first 70 seconds, then came in again late, with the game in hand. On his only shot, he knocked down a 3-pointer, delighting his teammates.
Phillips came to Tech to help lift his hometown team, which clinched its first .500 record in ACC play since 2007 with the win over Pitt, and accomplished it in a way he didn’t anticipate. In so doing, he developed maturity that all the playing time he could have wanted likely would not have helped him obtain.
“I think that’s just as important as me playing, getting minutes,” he said. “The areas I’ve grown are going to help me in the long run.”
Phillips is on track to graduate this spring with a degree in history, technology and society. He plans to give basketball a shot at the professional level. Pastner called himself “forever grateful” for Phillips’ attitude.
“He was a great energy giver, he had an incredible attitude every day,” Pastner said. “He was just a really good team guy and I’m just telling you, it’s going to pay off for him big time in the big picture.”
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