Baier Excited for Opportunities On and Off the Court in Manhattan

By: D. Scott Fritchen

New Kansas State men's basketball strength and conditioning coach Phil Baier sits in his car on a Zoom call Tuesday evening after a long trip from Miami, Florida. He has been at K-State for less than two weeks. His fiancée, Jenna, and their two dogs, Atlas and Ross, have been in Manhattan for an hour.

"We're excited," Baier says. "We're going to buy a house and have a yard for the dogs and have the staff and everyone over. It was really tough to do in Miami with the housing market and limited space there. We're excited."

K-State head coach Jerome Tang hired Baier as his strength and conditioning coach earlier this month. Baier arrives at K-State after spending the previous three seasons as strength and conditioning coach at Miami (2019-22) and has nine years of experience working specifically with men's basketball teams. Prior to Miami, he served full-time stints at Arkansas State (2015-17) and North Texas (2017-19). He has been a part of four 20-win seasons, a run to the 2022 Elite Eight and the 2018 CBI Championship.

Already he envisions big things for K-State and is particularly excited with the opportunity to work with returning K-State players Markquis Nowell and Ismael Massoud. Yes, they are already sweating in the weight room under Baier's watch. And they seem to love it.

"In the first eight or nine days, Ish has gained four or five pounds," Baier says.

But it's about building a culture by which the returners and the newcomers can flourish and reach their potential. That's what Baier brings to the program alongside Tang and his talented assistant coaches. Baier has daily involvement with the players and is eager for other players to join what they're building in Manhattan.

"We're going to really stress body language, effort, enthusiasm and attitude," Baier says. "Those are the big things you can control every single day, and we're going to hold them to a standard. Really, this is one of the great things about Coach Tang and the rest of his staff, is they live that out every single day. It's hard to tell if anybody is having a bad day because number one, they pick each other up, but number two, they're coming into work with the right attitude and are really showing it. Although we only have two guys here right now, it's already rubbing off on those guys. That's really what we're going to be about."

K-State Sports Extra's D. Scott Fritchen spoke with Baier about his journey to K-State and the ins and outs of his strength and conditioning program Tuesday evening.

D. SCOTT FRITCHEN: When did you arrive in Manhattan with Jenna, Atlas and Ross? How excited are they?

PHIL BAIER: We just got in and unloaded a bunch of our stuff at the storage facility and our dogs were ripping to go. I told my fiancée there's a dog park right here, so we came over here for 20 or 30 minutes. Jenna, we've been dating for about six years, and I recently proposed in August. She's from Sarasota, Florida, and she's a nurse in the ICU. We met in Arkansas. She moved down to Texas with us and then moved to Miami. Finally, I obtained the courage to propose, so here we are. Atlas is a four-year-old Chocolate Lab, who's about 105 pounds, a big dog who gets super excited for about 90 seconds and then he's the most chill dog in the world. Ross just turned one. We rescued him last November. He's part Boxer, part Cattle Dog, with a little bit of Pit mix in there, and he's just a really curious dog. He'll respect your space, but he'll also return to you throughout the day. He's going to try and come say hi at any point. They're unbelievably important. We make sure I get with them every day. Obviously, there's that unconditional love that I try to apply to my coaching career. We're always going to love you the same.

I've been here for a little over a week. It's been about 10 days. Obviously, I've had the opportunity to work with Marquis and Ish, and I've gotten to know the staff that is here really, really well. I've been involved with all the recruiting visits over the past week or so. The coaches went out recruiting and we had to give the guys Monday and Tuesday off if they wanted to help host recruits this weekend. I asked Coach if I could fly out Sunday night, pick up Jenna, and we'll drive as fast as we can and get out here. This is Jenna's first hour in Manhattan. She's excited. We're excited. We're going to buy a house and have a yard for the dogs and have the staff and everyone over, and it was really tough to do in Miami with the housing market and limited space there. We're excited.

.@CoachJTang made another addition to his staff on Thursday (April 21) with @CoachPhil_KSU joining as strength and conditioning coach.

Welcome Phil Baier to the K-State Family!

🔗https://t.co/dAbgDruIhS #KStateMBB x EMAW pic.twitter.com/9Rz5o3Bohn
— K-State Men's Basketball (@KStateMBB) April 21, 2022

FRITCHEN: Do you feel like K-State is a big family already?

BAIER: Oh my gosh, yes. We're up there pretty late either watching film on recruits or planning the visits. I'm obviously talking about the workouts with Ish and Marquis. It's got a little bit of a college/brother feel to it, because you're just with the guys working toward something and it's really cool. Everybody is just so nice. You can tell there's a strong buzz around the community in terms of the excitement that this staff is generating along with the guys coming back and the energy they're bringing. It's really something to be pumped about.

FRITCHEN: Let's jump into it. Markquis is obviously a workout nut. What's your relationship with him and what stands out?

BAIER: The first day I could I took him and Ish out to dinner and talked a lot about things they'd like on the training side of things and day to day if they're morning guys or guys who stay in the gym really, really late. We really just got some particulars. It's literally been every day that whether we're on in terms of mandatory work or what is technically off days, he and Ish have hit me up to come in and do voluntary work. Whether it be in the weight room or a stretch before a strength session or before a speed session, Markquis is trying to add a level of strength and conditioning to almost everything he's doing. That's something to really be excited about. Just based on the early measurements we've taken he's a tremendous athlete, and he's a tremendous person as well. We're really fortunate that he chose to stay.

FRITCHEN: Obviously, Ish has a different body frame. What do you see in him?

BAIER: Him and I have talked about it, and I've used NBA combine data with the size and the weight and body fat portion of it. He's realized that he had some work to do to make sure his both weight and body fat percentage isn't a red flag. We don't want any red flags out of anybody. In the first eight or nine days, Ish has gained four or five pounds. We do need to dive into some deeper measurables on that and make sure his body fat is staying the same, and it's something we do every three weeks. We'll get that when we get our second test there. He's with Markquis and they're always with each other, so he's coming in the weight room and getting a ton of extra work in. He's really talking about his diet, too, and working with our nutritionist. He's not the biggest fan of veggies, so that's a personal project of mine, to get him to eat some more greens. He's also in that workaholic category. You think about having two guys that you want to surround them with players where if that's their attitude, man, we're going to be in a good spot once we get everybody signed and here.

FRITCHEN: And once the new guys do get here, they'll be in your program, and you've obviously had a very fine career. Can you take me through the mental checklist you go through and your philosophy in what you want to install in the program for these guys once they do come in?

BAIER: Really on the Xs and Os side, big picture, we want to make sure we reduce the rate of injury. Obviously, they're going to run around all summer and fall and during the season and be explosive and play above the rim and play through contact and land on one leg and land on two legs or fall or whatever the case is — we want to make sure the rate of injury is way, way down, and if they are down, they come back really quick. After that, basketball is unique because you can practice year around, so I'm going to try to make sure all their goals become my goals, but do it in a way that they can be like Ish and Markquis and lift and condition and do whatever we have on the basketball court from a mandatory aspect and have plenty in the tank extra. That really depends on our relationship, their past training background, what they're capable of, and their goals.

Everybody is going to have some similarities within their program, but I want to make sure every single day we're moving the needle toward their individual goals as well as the team goals, which we can dive into after this. We want to reduce rate of injury, make sure they're ready to compete, and then the third and fourth portions are really your metrics — you're bigger, faster, stronger, your symmetrical, and you don't have many muscular imbalances. That's done through, number one, tested NBA combine drills, and number two, advanced metrics on the floor and some sprint data that we'll get, and once we get a team here, they'll wear a connected GPS tracking device that we can utilize to make sure we're always trending in the right direction. And after that, we want to make sure they are ready for the NBA Combine, so hopefully when their day comes, they really, really produce there, and they're not just an average mark but they're above average with zero red flags, and when scouts call, I can say, "Hey, turn on the tape. They're going to meet everything you need from size wise to explosive power wise to speed and agility and body competition." Whatever it is, we want it going in.

That's really the big picture there in terms of a culture and a competitive standpoint. We're going to really stress body language, effort, enthusiasm and attitude. Those are the big things you can control every single day and we're going to hold them to a standard. Really, this is one of the great things about Coach Tang and the rest of his staff, is they live that out every single day. It's hard to tell if anybody is having a bad day because, number one, they pick each other up, but number two, they're coming into work with the right attitude and are really showing it. Although we only have two guys here right now, it's already rubbing off on those guys. That's really what we're going to be about.

FRITCHEN: You come to K-State after three years at Miami, but it was actually at Arkansas State where you met Jareem Dowling in 2016 and moved with him to North Texas. Can you tell us a little bit about your relationship with Jareem and the thrill of being back together?

BAIER: It's not just a relationship. He's my brother. When me and Jenna get married, he's going to stand next to me up there as a groomsman. Even when I took the Miami job, it's almost like we're talking every single week multiple times, whether it be text or FaceTime. He's a little more active on social media than I am, and I'm hoping to change that, but I'll shoot him a comment on something. We met in 2016 at Arkansas State and really, we're just about the same things. Obviously, he's an assistant basketball coach and I'm the strength and conditioning coach, so our sectors might be different, but really what we believe in, what I'm talking about with body language and effort and attitude and enthusiasm, that's something he's preaching to the guys every single day. He holds himself to a high standard. That's the type of people I want to surround myself with. His wife and my fiancée are super, super close, and we're going to buy a house 0.3 or 0.4 miles from each other and be able to walk over and watch football together and hang out and watch other basketball games. It's really going to be awesome.

FRITCHEN: Can you describe your first point of contact with Coach Tang regarding this position? When exactly did that take place and what enticed you about joining Tang's staff?

BAIER: First point of contact was really Jareem asking me if I'd be interested if they had the ability to bring on a strength and conditioning coach. That's really what got myself and Coach Tang on the phone when the opportunity presented itself, and there was an opportunity. We hopped on and talked for about 30 or 45 minutes and then had some one-on-one follow-up conversations. It really boiled down to him being a servant leader and somebody who's going to live what he preaches and is going to bring it every single day in terms of his effort and energy and positivity and his ability to relate to the guys and make sure they're not being complacent or getting stagnant with their work habits. That's really what I want to be about. That's no disrespect to anybody I've worked for in the past, but it was someone I felt that I connected super, super well with. I obviously had the connection to the staff, and there were some lifestyle goals in terms of getting a house and being close to people we really care about.

There was a lot to really be excited about. Yeah, on paper, people might be like, "Why would you leave Miami to go to Manhattan, Kansas?" but it's really the how we're going to do it, and that's what really excites me about Coach Tang and the rest of the staff. I'm hoping that, like I said, I can do my part and we're going to build this thing into a championship-caliber program each and every year.

FRITCHEN: Most K-Staters probably don't know that you were actually a college football player and a very fine wide receiver at Springfield College or that you had strength and conditioning internships at Harvard and USC and worked with eight different sports. So, you've run the gamut. What made you interested in pursuing a career as a strength and conditioning coach?

BAIER: At Springfield, I was fortunate enough to say I had four different strength and conditioning coaches. It was really my freshman year I came in small. I was like 6-foot-1 and 160 pounds and could move really well, but it was my strength and conditioning coach that really opened my eyes to the impact a strength and conditioning coach could have. He was at meals and checking meals, and he was out at practice telling me to work on different sprint mechanics, and he was dragging me in after practice to get extra lifts in. He was someone who wasn't afraid of having a huge impact on an athlete's life, which made me think, "I want to be like that guy." The program between coaches might've been different but the impact stayed super, super high, and that was very admirable, and that's something I really, really wanted to be a part of.

I came into college as a physical education major thinking I'd be a gym teacher, and I'd taken the same prerequisites as the strength and conditioning majors as well, so I just switched majors. I had a ton of success at the Division III football level, and we won a lot of games, but I knew there wasn't a pro career, so I was fortunate and went home over the summer and started my coaching career at Harvard and got ahead of the game. That opened a bunch of doors at USC, which opened up doors as a graduate assistant, as an assistant, as an assistant director job at North Texas under Coach Grant McCasland, and worked with Jareem, and Ross Hodge, Matty Braeuer, James Miller and all those guys, and I worked with all of these great people. I just continued to keep it pushing.

FRITCHEN: What are one or two of your favorite strength and conditioning success stories?

BAIER: The first one that comes to mind is this past season at Miami. I mean, we were coming off the year we had in 2020-21 and obviously on paper, the press people didn't think very highly of us. We were picked 12^th in the ACC, and being a part of that group, it was a very unique group because some of the older players we worked with there — Sam Waardenburg, Isaiah Wong, Kameron McGusty, and Anthony Walker — were all contributors on the past year's team that hadn't had much success and chose to stay and did a ton of work in terms of changing their bodies and driving up their performance. Although 2020-21 wasn't a very good year, and we were injured and weren't winning many games. We came back, and we were one of the healthiest teams in the country and made a run at the whole thing and nearly went to the Final Four. So, being a part of that and seeing all that come together in just a short period of time, especially in the run in March, that was probably my favorite success story.

Number two, I'd say another championship run our first year at North Texas, coming from Arkansas State, and we had just an OK year and were 15-17 at the end of the year, and chose to play in the CBI. That kind of gave a lot of the guys on that team a new life in terms of their energy. We won four straight, lost the first one in the three-game series, and won the next two, and finished the first year with a championship game win on April 2. There were barely any teams playing basketball, and you're one of the last teams to finish with a win.

I'll use those two as examples. There are a ton of guys I've coached that have had a ton of individual success, but even amongst that individual success, it's that team culture and team energy and team pressure to drive your performance forward that drives the individual success forward. You get a group of guys with the same mindset and goals and it's a lot "easier" to change someone's body or get them to run faster or jump higher or be in better shape or be more symmetrical. That's really where my head is at with that.

FRITCHEN: You're spending a lot of time at the K-State basketball facility these days. I'm curious your thoughts on the facilities at K-State?

BAIER: The Coliseum is great. We do some things with highlight videos, and you see the crowd go crazy and that's something that's super, super exciting. We were fortunate this past year to have some great crowds at Miami, but Bramlage, it's been known that it's arguably one of the tougher places to play in the country. That's something I'm excited about. As far as facility, it's great space in the weight room there and with the 35-yard-long portion of the weight room. That's really exciting. Me and the women's strength and conditioning coach are talking about doing some maneuvering of equipment to really maximize it and really take advantage of it. Everything that's there for the most part is everything you need to be successful. You've got your platforms, your weights, your technology devices that will help you track and see if your program is working well and see where guys are at every single day to make sure you're doing the right thing for them.

Having the practice court right there is great. I've had some interesting situations where we lifted and had to walk 12 minutes from the weight room to the practice facility or arena. Having it where you can be on the court in two minutes laced up and ready for stretch, that's a strength and conditioning coach's dream.

Kansas State University Athletics

Baier Excited for Opportunities On and Off the Court in Manhattan

Players Mentioned

Ismael Massoud

Markquis Nowell

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