High school girls basketball: Cushing hires Jake Phillips as head coach

Cushing has hired its next girls basketball coach.

Former Newcastle assistant girls basketball coach Jake Phillips will take over as the Tigers head coach, he announced Wednesday morning on Facebook.

“This is a great opportunity for Brittani and I and we can’t wait to start our new adventure,” Phillips wrote. “I want to take just a moment to recognize the community of Newcastle. The last nine years have seen so many great things come into my life!”

The Cushing position will be Phillips' second girls basketball head coaching job. He spent a year in Texas as the head coach at Samnorwood, a school that is now closed. Phillips said he is “really excited” for his first opportunity to lead an Oklahoma program.

“It’s a great area, it’s a program with a lot of tradition,” Phillips said. “Coach [Pat] Elder and Coach [Brian] Busby have built an amazing program there. They have amazing facilities. And that really drove me to apply and I was so thankful when they said, ‘we’d love for you to come on board.’”

Along with basketball, Phillips coached softball at Newcastle serving as the head coach of the slowpitch team and the assistant coach of the fastpitch team. He will continue to coach softball at Cushing as fastpitch assistant.

“I’ve got to coach under two pillars with Coach [Brett] Sanders in basketball and Coach [Mike] Crossley in softball,” Phillips said. “I’ve learned one of the biggest things is to create that unity and create that family feel in your program.”

Phillips will succeed Busby, who took an administrative role.

Busby led Cushing to a 12-13 record in the 2019-20 season.

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