Chemistry test: UVU men’s basketball comes together for WAC Tourney run
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- UVU guard Tanner Toolson drives toward the basket during the game against Jacksonville State at the Pete Mathews Coliseum in Jacksonville, Alabama, on Saturday, Dec. 14, 2024.
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- UVU head coach Todd Phillips (right) talks to sophomore Carter Welling during the WAC game against Seattle at the UCCU Center in Orem on Saturday, Feb, 22, 2025.
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- UVU’s Dominick Nelson (0) drives to the basket against Stanford in a men’s college basketball game in Stanford, Calif., on Tuesday, Dec. 4, 2024.
In today’s college basketball landscape, the time players spend together in the off-season is more important than ever.
Utah Valley’s Todd Phillips and his coaching staff brought ten transfers to the roster for the 2024-25 season and set to building chemistry between the newcomers and the veterans.
That’s when Tanner Toolson met Dominick Nelson.
Toolson was a returning starter, a 6-foot-5 sharpshooter who averaged 9.5 points and made 48 3-pointers as a redshirt freshman. Nelson, also 6-5, was a transfer from Polk State in Florida where he averaged 20.1 points for the Eagles last season.
“When I first met Dom he was a quiet kid but I’ve grown to love him,” Toolson said. “He’s super funny and he’s been huge for us. His style of play was our style, running up and down. He’s super athletic and I started calling him ‘Jump Man.’ In the summer, we were throwing lobs to each other on fast breaks. In the summer it was more me to him, but in the season it’s been more him to me.”
Nelson made himself right at home in Orem, leading the team in scoring (15.5 points per game) and winning the Western Athletic Conference Player of the Year.
Nelson and key additions Carter and Hayden Welling (UC Irvine), Kylin Green (Daytona State), Cory Wells (Xavier, La.) and Noah Taitz (Stanford) have meshed well with Toolson and other returners such as Trevan Leonhardt, Osiris Grady, Ethan Potter and Jackson Holcombe to roll through the Western Athletic Conference with a 15-1 record. Utah Valley (23-7) is the No. 1 seed heading into this week’s WAC Tournament in Las Vegas.
Phillips, who was named the WAC Coach of the Year on Monday. said that in the offseason he felt like he and his coaching staff had put together a good roster, but the group has exceeded even his own expectations.
“I definitely liked the potential of the guys we had,” Phillips said. “I thought we had a chance to compete for the league title. But to rattle off all of these wins? Not at all. We were such a young team and I knew there would be growing pains as we figured out how we would work together. I liked our length and talent, but our youth made me a little bit nervous. They’ve all been really resilient. We’ve had a lot of guys step up and make big plays throughout the year.”
Nelson is Phillips’ biggest success story, a junior college transfer who has become one the league’s top offensive players.
“He continues to impress us more as we put more on his plate and he continues to eat that,” Phillips said.
Phillips, who coached Salt Lake Community College to an NJCAA championship in 2016, said he learned a long time ago that creating a successful team requires constant adjustments.
“You have a game plan or a blueprint of what to do but you have to keep changing,” he said. “Here at Utah Valley we won a conference championship under Mark Madsen two years ago. We do a lot of the same things but we continue to try to change and evolve. The players really show you the way.”
Phillips and UVU are working to take the next step in the program’s history and win the WAC title, which as an added bonus includes the league’s NCAA Tournament auto bid.
“We’ve won the league three of the past five years but we’ve never played in the championship game,” Phillips said. “We’ve actually never been the No. 1 seed, so there is a lot of new territory for us and we’re forming our own path. Leadership is a big part of that. The biggest thing with this group is we have strength in numbers. It’s not all on Dom or Carter or Tanner. We have sidekicks that are pretty good and that gives our guys more strength. There are multiple ways we can win and we’ve done that all year. We’ve been chasing this thing for a long time. We want to be aggressive going into the tournament and leave it all on the floor.”
Toolson said he and his teammates are confident heading into Wednesday’s quarterfinals.
“Our identity is we’re a bunch of dogs who work hard every single day,” Toolson said. “We come after you on defense and we play together well. We have a lot of individual talent on this team but we play as a unit. Our goal is nothing short of winning the WAC title.”
The Wolverines will face off against No. 9 seed Utah Tech, which defeated Southern Utah 72-65 in a opening round game in St. George on Tuesday. UVU, which has won eight straight games, defeated the Thunderbirds twice this season in WAC play. The Wolverines won 96-80 in Orem on Jan. 18 and escaped St. George with a 79-77 overtime victory on Feb. 20.
Men’s College Basketball
Western Athletic Conference Tournament Quarterfinals
No. 1 Utah Valley (23-8) vs. No. 9 Utah Tech (7-25)
Wednesday, 7 p.m. MT
Orleans Arena, Las Vegas
TV/Streaming: ESPN+
Radio: ESPN The Fan (960 AM)
Live stats: wacsports.com
The Word: Utah Valley and Utah Tech have met ten times as Division I foes. … The Wolverines lead the series 7-3, including a pair of wins this season. … Utah Valley is 6-10 in 10 previous WAC Tournaments. … The Wolverines have advanced to the semifinals in five of the past seven seasons but have never landed a spot in the finals.
