State college coaches marveling at Tyler Herro’s star turn
University of Hartford coach John Gallagher is on a group chat with 15 other Division I head coaches, and the texts were flying Wednesday night during Game 4 of the NBA Eastern Conference Finals between the Celtics and the Heat.
Tyler Herro. 20 years old. 37 points in 36 minutes. Whoa.
“We were all saying to each other that you could tell that guy in the four months off because of COVID was working on his game at an extreme level,” Gallagher said. “He was a really good rookie, but now you’re seeing the culture of the Miami Heat he’s thriving in. That’s a Pat RileyEric Spoelstra culture that everyone in the NBA talks about as maybe being the best.
“He’s on a perfect team with the moxie of Jimmy Butler and great complementary players around him that give him a lot of space. His creativity doesn’t suffer. Last night, his pace of play and the way he was moving was like an artist.
Wayne Gretzky with a hockey stick.”
Forgive Fairfield coach Jay Young if his first reaction isn’t to break into Bonnie Tyler, “I need a hero …”
“As a lifelong Celtics fan,” Young said. “I am not really happy with Herro today.”
This is one of the most uncomfortable times in the history of modern sports. COVID-19 has separated
our sporting heroes inside bubbles. Those who aren’t in bubbles play in front of empty stands in their cities. Cities that we can only hope aren’t burning with the unrest of social injustice.
Still the games go on, and there are stories that still capture our fascination. Like Bryson DeChambeau in golf. And Tyler Herro in basketball.
Herro, the 13th player taken in the 2019 NBA draft and playing well in his rookie season, re-emerged in the bubble of the NBA playoffs as one of the game’s nascent stars. Herro had 22 points in Game 3 and is one of three rookies in NBA history to score in double figures in his first 13 playoff games.
Yet it was his 37 points off the bench to give the Heat a 3-1 series lead that caught the full attention of a sports nation. Only Magic Johnson, with 42 points in the deciding game of the 1980 NBA Finals, scored more in the playoffs among those 20 or younger.
“Thanks for bringing that up,” Yale coach James Jones said. “My brother is a Lakers fan. I’m a Sixers fan. That game hurt my heart. Kareem AbdulJabbar got hurt. I thought we had the game in the bag. And freakin’ Magic goes off.”
Ah, the wonder of sports. America’s talk shows woke up Thursday talking Herro. UConn assistant coach Tom Moore said COVID has made for a schedule where college coaches around the country can’t wait every night to watch the NBA playoffs.
“I probably had some preconceived notions like most people because I hadn’t watched as much of him in the regular season,” Quinnipiac coach Baker Dunleavy said. “I always knew he was competitive and played hard, but as the playoffs go on you look at him as a guy budding into an All-Star talent. He’s going against the stereotype of being just a spot-up shooter and more like a dynamic, ball-handling creator-scorer similar to Donovan Mitchell, Jamal Murray.”
As they were saying on ESPN, Herro’s not a specialist like Duncan Robinson. He’s a baller developing at a frighteningly accelerated rate.
“You know that saying, ‘Luck happens when preparation meets opportunity’? Brilliance does, too,” Jones said. “You listen to what John Calipari said, that he always has been a gem, that he always is working to prepare himself for the moment, the opportunity.
“I also think at his age ignorance can be sort of bliss. I think there will be a point in his life when he’ll look back and say, ‘Man, I can’t believe I did that at such a young age.’ But you’re not thinking about things like that. Your instincts just take over.”
A four-star guard from a Milwaukee suburb who committed to Wisconsin in September of his junior year, Herro decommitted in October of his senior year. Florida, Arizona, Kansas, Oregon and Villanova (Dunleavy had already left for Quinnipiac and wasn’t involved) jumped in. None jumped in any harder than Calipari.
“I was at Rutgers at the time,” Young said. “He had verbally committed to Wisconsin and you’re always paying attention to what other teams in the (Big Ten) are doing. I was in Milwaukee for an AAU tournament. You look out on the court and it only took 30 seconds to figure out he was a bad boy.
“He had a swagger. He was a confident kid. He loved playing. You couldn’t keep your eyes off him. I was really happy he decided to go to Kentucky. What do I see now? The same kid I saw three, four years ago. He plays with an incredible amount of confidence. He has that ‘it.’ Whatever that is, he has got it.”
Gallagher joked that all Calipari needs to recruit now is to show highlights of one-and-done Kentucky players Herro and Jamal Murray of the Nuggets from the NBA bubble.
When Herro, ranked 30th nationally by ESPN recruiting, committed to Kentucky in November 2017, he was labeled a traitor in his home state. Opposing fans waved toy snakes at games. His family’s yard was painted Wisconsin red by vandals. He even had death threats.
“He kept playing great with death threats,” Gallagher said. “That alone tells you he has got big stones.”
Dunleavy said the combination of really good teammates, a great organization and the chance to play right away with Miami greatly benefited Herro.
“But when anyone plays that well (as Wednesday), he has had that in him for a long time,” Dunleavy said. “That competitive edge, that hunger, the ability to play in that moment — you just don’t immediately get all that.”
“The confidence and the swagger in the NBA is usually something that takes years to develop,” Moore said. “This guy, no hesitation. He really helps put things in perspective for us. We think we have some really good players. They’re 20, 21, 22. Dan (Hurley) mentioned to one of our guys the other day, Tyler Herro is doing what he’s doing in the NBA.
“You’re starting to hear the stories leak out what a legendary work ethic has. That’s neat. That’s the stuff you can use on your own guys. Even Spoelstra was saying people see the 37 points, but they don’t see how hard he worked in the dark.”
Jones said a player doesn’t need to be an athletic freak. When you know how to play the game, you know how to make it easier. Herro plays to his system, stays within himself.
“And when he gets going,” Jones said, “his teammates are like, ‘We got to get this kid the ball.’ ”
That only breeds more self-assurance.
“I know Duncan Robinson pretty well,” Young said. “Good player. Great shooter. But if you had told me his senior year at Michigan he’d be starting in the NBA, I’d have said you’re crazy. Herro has an NBA game. He can shoot, drive, athletic, moves well, good size at 6-5. The thing a lot of those guys lack at that age is the confidence to know you belong. He certainly doesn’t lack that. That’s his separator.”
Herro is white. On the back of his jersey, as part of the NBA initiative for social justice, he chose the following words: Black Lives Matter.
Although the city of Louisville came to a $12 million settlement agreement with Breonna Taylor’s family, a grand jury decided Wednesday not to move forward with charges against the three police officers for their roles in her death. One was charged with wanton endangerment for firing his gun into a neighbor’s apartment.
“I think it’s unfortunate,” Herro said during a postgame news conference Wednesday. “I think money is not justice.
“There’s obviously a problem going on in the world. I feel like this stage, with this type of platform, putting that on my jersey, everybody sees my last name, but they also see ‘Black Lives Matter’ on the back. I think that’s important.”
On a night when protests spread from Louisville to cities around the country, the 20-year-old kid showed the poise of someone twice his age. “We have to do better,” Herro said. “None of this makes sense to me, and it all makes sense to me,” Jones said. “Trayvon Martin is killed with a bag of Skittles and an (iced tea), but he had a hood on and now he’s dead. The guy who killed him gets off free. Breonna Taylor was lying in her bed, and now she’s dead and there are no charges against this man. Do I think the cops went there trying to kill her? No, but the result is she is dead and there are no consequences. So basically, they’re saying it’s OK for these things to happen to Black people. It’s not OK.”