Prospect Spotlight: Tyler Ridley (2018)
LOS ANGELES – Tyler Ridley is trying to use the month of July to make up for a spring away from the gymnasium floor.
The 6-foot-5 senior-to-be had a strong junior season for Coach Arturo Jones’ Lawndale Leuzinger program – even as his lower back was giving him twinges of discomfort for much of that season.
Ridley underwent surgery to correct the issue in his lumbar almost immediately after his team’s 54-47 loss to Vista Murrieta on Feb. 17 in the quarterfinals of the CIF Southern Section’s Division 2A playoffs.
Ridley was forced to the sidelines for the rest of the spring while healing, resting and rehabilitating his body – all the while as his high school and club ball (Earl Watson Elite) teammates were playing in spring tournaments throughout the southland and other hoops spring hot spots (such as Las Vegas).
“It was very frustrating,” he said calmly after a game with his Earl Watson Silver 2018 team during the July 12-16 West Coast Summer Kick-Off in the south Orange County city of Irvine.
“I couldn’t even begin doing any cardio (running, etc., for his conditioning) and I couldn’t shoot a basketball until June.”
He didn’t let those hoop-related frustrations impact his classroom performance, though.
With his Advanced Placement Courses in English and U.S. History, he finished his junior year with a 4.1 grade point overage. Overall, he said, it’s about 3.7.
He modestly doesn’t attribute that sparkling academic resume to extra-ordinary academic curiosity or any hyper-structure with his time management to study skills.
“I just don’t to fail at anything,” he said. “I want to feel like I’ve given my best effort at anything I attempt.”
He hopes to take that philosophy to the best-possible college that admires all of those qualities he’ll bring with him as a freshman – in the classroom and on the court – in the fall of 2018.
He’s savvy enough to know that many college basketball coaching staffs make recruiting decisions about what they see on the court during the spring and then the three “evaluation weeks” in July.
That’s why he knows what he is able to demonstrate during the rest of the month (Week 3 runs July 26-30) in front of coaches could dictate where is attending classes as a college freshman in the fall of 2018.
His on-court game “return” netted him 19 points and 11 rebounds with Leuzinger (alma mater to the one only Russell Westbrook, FYI) on July 11 and then a couple of productive outings in his first two games at the Irvine event.
“I know I’ve only a short amount of time remaining (this month) for exposure (to college recruiters),” he said.
Even if a right college fit isn’t made in time for the November NCAA “early” signing week, he’s got the entirety of what should be a terrific senior season for himself and a Leuzinger squad that should challenge for best in the CIF 2A once again.
And that’s another six or so more months in order buff an already glistening transcript – on the court and in the classroom – for a kid who will settle for nothing less.