After An Easy Decision to Return, Tyler Wahl Needs to Lead Wisconsin

PROVIDENCE, R.I. – It didn’t take much prodding from those around him to convince Tyler Wahl that one more season playing basketball for Wisconsin was the right choice for him. But of those he did seek consul, Wahl’s grandfather offered the bluntest response.

“My grandpa told me, ‘You might want to stick around college for an extra year,’” he said.

Surely there had to be some explanation or words of wisdom that accompanied that opinion, right?

“He really didn’t tell me a whole lot,” Wahl said with a laugh. “I am sure he wanted to come to a few more games.”

In retrospect, Wahl wanted some more games, too. A week separated the end of the season, an ugly 56-54 loss to North Texas at Las Vegas’ Orleans Arena in the NIT Semifinals, and his decision to return for a last hurrah. To be blunt, there weren’t many joyful things to celebrate in the last two-plus months.

Wahl began the year playing some of the best basketball of his career, living up to his selection as one of the conference’s preseason players to watch. He averaged 14.1 points and 6.8 rebounds per game and was the catalyst for Wisconsin to go 10-2 and rise to No.14 in the Associated Press poll.

But a turn of his ankle in an early January game against Minnesota changed the course of his season. He never returned to the level he was playing after missing three games, losing the rhythm within his offense and often being a step behind defensively.

His shooting percentage dropped and scoring plummeted, as did Wisconsin’s season, losing 12 of its next 18 games and being relegated to college basketball’s secondary postseason tournament.

“Not only physically he wasn’t where he wanted to be or needed to be or should be,” head coach Greg Gard said, “but mentally, that weighed as much as what the physical injury did.”

Wahl said he was clouded throughout the season as he contemplated returning for a fifth season, given to all winter sports athletes who saw their 2020 season affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Getting time to reflect after returning from Las Vegas, Wahl said the decision was easy and that a token NCAA Tournament appearance wouldn’t have affected the outcome.

Not only did he cite the UW culture and the people as reasons that pulled him back, but Wahl also didn’t want to end his career on a note where he was playing far from his best in a year on a team that repeatedly faltered late in games.

“We need to continue to work throughout the game,” Wahl said of improving on UW’s 10 losses in overtime or by fewer than five points. “Sometimes we’ll be up, and they’ll come back, or we’ll start slow, and we’ll have to work our way back. I think playing that full 40 minutes, and having an emphasis on that, from the starting five to the guys on the bench to the end of the bench, just playing that full 40 minutes and dominating every time.”

While healing his injured ankle was the top priority, Wahl building confidence with his shot was a close second. A year after shooting 51.6 percent from the field, Wahl’s shooting percentage dipped to a career-worst 42.3. He wasn’t impactful on the perimeter (10-for-34) and was one of the team’s many liabilities at the free-throw line (63.4 percent).

In the fall practices opened to the media, Wahl had the look of a shooter, an aggressive veteran who was letting things develop organically.

“That’s the main point, positive talk to myself, and just let it fly, not really having a second guess or a half-second delay to throw my timing off,” Wahl said last month. “When I get an open shot, let it fly.”

In Friday’s 80-70 loss to No.9 Tennessee, Wahl’s confidence was bruised. Frustrating by the Volunteers’ athleticism, length, and low-post size, his only first-half shot attempt came two seconds before halftime. He found a better offensive rhythm with his low post game in the second half (4-for-5) but was saddled with more questions about his free throws (2-for-7).

There was also the fact that Wahl was part of a defensive effort that allowed Tennessee to shoot 55.6 percent in the first half, score 42 points in the paint, and generally get whatever it wanted on dribble penetration, a sign that UW must lean on more than just experience and depth.

“If you play defense and the other team is shooing 56 percent or you’re playing a game, and the other team scores 80 points, it’s going to be hard to win those games,” Wahl said. “We’ve got to tighten things up defensively.”

That’s the task for Wisconsin (1-1) tonight against Providence (2-0) here at Amica Mutual Pavilion (5 p.m./FS1) as part of the Gavitt Tip-Off games. Although having a far different makeup than the team that was an 11-seed in last year’s NCAA Tournament, including seven new players and a new head coach in George Mason’s Kim English, the Friars possess an offense averaging 78.5 points per game in which preseason All-Big East forward Bryce Hopkins is a big part of.

Gard said Wahl has been terrific in his leadership in the lead up to the season. Part of it’s due to the depth surrounding the senior that no longer requires him to press.

“Having good teammates around him helps,” he commented. “The world is not on his shoulders. Maybe he felt that last year with what we lost from the year before.”

But more than atonement from last year’s shortcoming, or for the fact he can become the first UW player to be a part of three championship teams, it’s Wahl’s belief in his teammates and that they can bounce back in the months to come is why he heeded his grandfather’s words.

“It is the team aspect,” Wahl said. “You go on to play professionally, you want to make your next contact, you want to score your points to get your next paycheck. Here you get a team of 18-to-22-year-old young men working toward one thing without any care for really any other stuff.”

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