Recruiting Report: Tyler Wahl (2019)
Tyler Wahl of Lakeville North entered the week a candidate to be a high major player and is now a Minnesota talent who has high major offers certifying him as a high major player.
In the Saturday games at Atlanta Wahl had the perfect sampling of what he does: one game scoring a dozen points, one game grabbing seven rebounds, one game dishing six assists, one game totaling four steals, and all games playing top notch defense as well as making the right plays offensively.
“The best way to describe Tyler Wahl is that Tyler is a winner, and he makes winning plays,” said Jay Fuhrman, the coach of D1 Minnesota and Tyler’s AAU coach the last four seasons.
“He’s unselfish. Tyler moves the ball so well and sets a tone for our team with his unselfishness the way he passes the ball. Tyler is also one of the best on-ball and help side defenders I have ever coached. He is tenacious. Every single play Tyler competes with a passion that few have. He’s a winner and that’s the best way to describe him.”
There is no arguing the results with Tyler. This spring D1 Minnesota is ranked second in the nation by Prep Hoops with their 11-1 record. Tyler is also coming off a high school season where he played small forward, power forward, center, and in the last several weeks of the season he was the Lakeville North point guard (Tyler also led D1 Minnesota to the Comets Shootout championship playing point guard because Tyrell Terry was out for the weekend).
Lakeville North went 27-5 this winter with Wahl averaging 17.8 points, 12.1 rebounds, 5.6 assists, and 2.5 steals a game. Every one of those totals was a team high and he led the Panthers in blocks.
Tyler has earned offers from Northern Iowa, Wofford, Colorado State, Marshall, and most recently Wisconsin among others. Last night Tyler added the University of Minnesota to that list.
“I think it’s very cool to have the home state take interest and offer me early,” Tyler told Prep Hoops late Saturday night after receiving the Minnesota offer. At this point Wahl has only had early contact with the Gopher staff but will soon be building a relationship. “Coach Pitino seems like a very good coach. I can’t really say too much because we’ve only been in contact for a week.”
Only a few days ago Tyler was offered by Wisconsin after Coach Greg Gard’s first viewings of Wahl last weekend. Tyler said the following about receiving a Wisconsin offer earlier in the week:
“(Coach Gard) told me he likes how tough I play and that I make a lot of plays that help teams win games. My AAU coaches told me that coach Coach Krabbenhoft really likes me and this past weekend was the first time coach Gard had seen me play, so it came as a little bit of a surprise. They’ve been talking to me for a while now and I really appreciate them being the first high-major team to believe in me. Our high school team is going to a team camp at Wisconsin and my family and I are working out a date to take another visit in June.”
More scholarship offers are expected to come for the 6-foot-6/6-foot-7 wing forward who can also play in the post if needed or play point guard as he showed at the state tournament and the first weekend of AAU play.
When will Tyler make a choice? Earlier in the week he told 247 Sports that he plans to play things out through July unless something becomes really comfortable to him before that.
“There are a lot of teams calling about Tyler but the schools that haven’t offered who are showing real strong interest are Memphis and Iowa State,” said Fuhrman. “I’m fairly confident he will pick up those two (as offers). Right now I’m not sure who but I could see Tyler picking up a couple more high major offers after this weekend.”