The postseason is an anxious time for high school basketball coaches.

For McGill-Toolen boys coach Phillip Murphy, anxiety may be near an all-time high this week.

The ninth-ranked Yellow Jackets (25-6) will battle rival Theodore (23-8) at 10:30 a.m. Friday in the Class 7A South Regional semifinals at the Dothan Civic Center.

That is enough to cause any coach to lose sleep.

However, for the 36-year-old Murphy, that is just the beginning.

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His wife, Brandi, is expecting the couple’s fourth child at any time. There is a Feb. 29 C-section scheduled, but that is not to say the baby might not arrive early.

Also, the Murphys currently are restructuring their house to be able to accommodate the baby.

McGill coach Phillip Murphy celebrates a win over Murphy with Brandon Hinton.(Mike Kittrell)

“Between re-doing our house, practicing McGill-Toolen varsity basketball, coaching two CYO teams and being a Dad and a husband, there really is not time to be nervous about anything,” he said. “That’s fine with me. I’m not a person who likes to sit around. If I had to choose, I would choose to be going non-stop. For me, that’s a good thing because I have a lot of nervous energy.”

The Murphys, who will have been married 14 years in May, have three boys – Myles (12), Jackson (9) and Basil (5). The next baby – a girl – is sure to shakeup the household in a good way.

“It doesn’t even feel real, and it is two weeks or less away,” Murphy said. “I’m excited about having a girl, but I don’t know how I will react. Everyone said she will be spoiled with three older brothers and her father. It will be quite a change, but everyone is excited.”

It’s been an emotional stretch for Phillip and Brandi leading to this point. They lost a fourth boy (Ellis Monroe) in December of 2014. They went for the 20-week checkup and doctors found there was no fetal movement.

“Obviously it was a tough deal for us as it is for any parents who lose a child,” Murphy said. “We hurt for a while after we buried him and still do over that loss. But we wanted to have a girl and we talked about that, at our age, now was the time if we were going to try. God just has blessed us again.”

Though signs have pointed to the baby’s health throughout the pregnancy, Murphy admitted there have been some nervous moments during the last eight months.

“When you lose one, you always wonder when you go to the doctor, but it’s all been good,” he said.

Now it is just a matter of waiting to see how Ellison Greer’s arrival will fit into McGill-Toolen’s basketball schedule.

The Yellow Jackets will leave Mobile on Thursday for Friday’s game. Following the game – win or lose against Theodore – they will return home. If McGill wins, they would return to Dothan on Monday for Tuesday’s 2:15 p.m. regional final against either Fairhope or Baker.

The state tournament – should McGill reach that point -- is the first week of March in Birmingham. The Class 7A games are scheduled for March 3 and March 5 at Legacy Arena.

Murphy said there won’t be a decision should the baby come while the team is out of town for a game.

“If she goes into labor while I’m gone, I will jump in the car and get back here to see the birth of my daughter,” he said. “But we are praying that Feb. 29 turns out to be a good day. It kind of falls in between everything.”

If Murphy is unable to be at a game, assistant coach Terry Buckner would take over with help from Mark Shelley and Reed Hotard.

“I would be comfortable with the situation,” Murphy said. “Coach Shelley has been with me all nine years. Coach Buckner and coach Hotard have been with me the last six. They know the ins and outs of what we do and our kids trust them. In fact, most of our kids have been in the program for so long, if they had a substitution pattern, they could probably work pretty well on their own.”

McGill senior point guard Rene Scott said he wouldn’t want Murphy to miss a game, but he would understand and the team would persevere.

“Family comes first,” Scott said. “That is what we are about here. If he has to leave, we’ll have his back.”