Tyson Wheeler - A Rhody Legend

Feb 2, 2017
1 min read

Tyson Wheeler, a point guard from New London, Connecticut, is one of the greatest basketball players to ever spend his career at URI. Tyson's collegiate career at URI lasted from 1995 to 1998 and he impressed from start to finish. In his first year, he found himself on the A10 all-rookie team. This was just the beginning for him. In his second year, he wound up on the all-A10 second team as well as the all-A10 tournament team. During his junior and senior years, he made the all-A10 first team and brought the Rams to the NCAA tournament. In his senior year, he and co-star Cuttino Mobley led the Rams on a magical elite 8 run to cap off his amazing career. During this run, they knocked off #1 Kansas led by Paul Pierce and Raef Lafrentz, which is arguably one of the greatest wins in Rhode Island history. Overall, he finished his time at Rhode Island with 1,918 points, which is second all-time at URI. He was then selected as the 18th pick in the second round of the 1998 NBA draft by the Toronto Raptors and would eventually find himself on the Denver Nuggets. After logging 4 points, (1-1 from three, 1-2 from the foul line) and 2 assists in only 3 minutes for his entire NBA career, he wound up playing in European leagues. Tyson had a successful career playing in Europe for ten seasons and in 2006 was named to URI's All-Century team. Tyson Wheeler is now an assistant coach at Fairfield University, which is where he has been since 2010.