The NCAA tournament is about basketball but also so much more: the fans, bands, cheerleaders, etc. The Sweet 16/Elite 8 are taking place in 4 cities around the country and we could not be more excited to be there in person! HoopsHD is covering all of the angles so you can look forward to a cascade of coverage in the days ahead. Jon Teitel continues our coverage from Las Vegas with UCLA PG Tyger Campbell’s father Tony.
You allegedly named your son Tyger because he was born while Tiger Woods was on his way to winning the 2000 Mercedes Championship: what was he like as a child, and if Woods had not beaten Ernie Els by making a 40-foot putt on the 2nd playoff hole at Kapalua then would you have named him Ernye!? All of our kids have sports theme names. We had some other names we were thinking about but we just felt that “Tiger” would be an awesome sports name that an announcer could say over the loudspeaker at a football game: “tackle by Tiger”! The “Y” was just to make it a little different. He was pretty chill as kid: he was the youngest for a long time until we had our 4th child. He was a typical kid so there was nothing too outlandish, but he was an athletic prodigy so from age 5-6 we knew that he would become a great athlete. He was able to do some crazy gymnastic stuff when he was younger, which I think has helped with his muscle movement. My wife Jennifer is about 5’9” and Tyger ended up being 5’11” so once he got too tall for gymnastics he began to focus on basketball.
He received his 1st scholarship offer at age 13 from Western Kentucky while starting on the Christ Presbyterian Academy high school team as an 8th grader, committed to DePaul in 2017, and later signed with UCLA in 2018: why did he change his mind, and what made him choose the Bruins over schools like Maryland/Purdue? As a dad, when you walk out of any recruiting visit you are like “Wow, they love you, you should go here!” He had pro aspirations and we all liked the UCLA coach at the time (Steve Alford), as well as the weather. It is a good school with a great tradition and was the best fit…but it was Tyger’s decision.
He tore his left ACL during a preseason practice in October of 2018 and missed the entire year: how bad was it, and how was he able to finally get back onto the court? It was your typical ACL tear. When they gave us the final diagnosis in the hospital he was just like, “Okay, what’s next?” He listened to his doctors, did everything the right way, and came back sooner than anyone had expected. It is a tribute to how seriously he took his rehab: I was proud of him for doing that.
In the 2021 Final 4 he scored 17 PTS/6-11 FG but the Zags beat UCLA on a Jalen Suggs 40-foot bank shot to beat the buzzer in OT: what are your memories of that stunning shot? We were sitting right there and were all very excited: even though we were an 11 seed we felt like we could beat anybody because the whole team was clicking on all cylinders. When Johnny Juzang hit that layup with 3.3 seconds left we just assumed that the game would be going to a 2nd OT. I have never experienced anything like that: the high of Johnny’s shot and then the low of Jalen’s shot. It was just a tough shot by a tremendous player.
Earlier this month he was named 1st-team All-Pac-12 for the 3rd year in a row as well as honorable mention All-American: how proud were you to see him receive all of these outstanding honors? Very proud! Growing up you train and go to AAU tourneys so you have to get up early and stay up all night. You want to give your kid a chance to play college basketball, and he ended up playing at an elite level for the majority of his career. I was just reflecting on all of his career accolades with my oldest son. Tyger passed Tyus Edney last night for #2 on the UCLA all-time AST list and his 3:1 AST/TO ratio is the best of anyone by far. How many parents can say that they got to watch their kid even play in the Final 4, much less as 1 of the main contributors on his team?! Nobody can ever take that away from us.
In his 6 postseason games this month he has made 33-37 FTs with 41 AST/4 TO: do you feel like he has been playing the best basketball of his life this month? If you look at his stats this is the best year he has ever had. Talking to him, even though his shot has not been falling as much he says this is the most comfortable he has ever felt on the court. He looks so fluid and has so much confidence. I am not sure what he would say but he is doing a great job of running the team/making the right pass/taking the right shot.
You played basketball at Luther College: who is the best athlete in the family? If you want to go off of straight athleticism…it would be me. I was the only 1 in my family who could dunk consistently: my wife might roll her eyes at that but it is true! Tyger is cerebral/skilled but does not get enough credit for his own athleticism.
You are the founder of a youth basketball organization called Handles & Buckets: what makes your group different from other groups? Our approach: we call ourselves a skills program that happens to have AAU teams. We stress fundamentals/development and are a 1-stop shop: camps, leagues, travel ball, skills, etc. We participate in leagues year-round and have 16 different travel teams. We provide everything for the kids that come out of our program. Every single person has improved over time and we take pride in that: other programs might have cut some of our players but we coach them as if they were elite-level talent. If a 5th grader is not the top 5th grader around, we still have success stories where he ends up making his middle school team in the years ahead. We have elite kids but do not just limit it to that. Myself/my wife/my son/my daughter have all seen the process that Tyger has gone through from elementary school to now: we have a unique advantage/perspective because we have seen it from every single level. We want to help kids not just on the court but also by serving as a resource. My wife’s passion is to conduct classes for parents of young kids to give them information and help them navigate through the process that we have been through ourselves. We can help with all different facets of the journey: we can make your kid better at basketball AND help you decide which tourneys/camps to send him to because we have a pretty good grasp of the youth basketball landscape. We started from nothing and it is a pretty cool thing to be able to help so many kids. I was a teacher/coach for 20+ years so to be able to keep working with kids on my own and run it as a family (my 2 oldest kids are the directors and my wife is our operations manager) has been an amazing thing. My oldest son was “Client Zero” but to have 1 of your main “clients” playing high-level college basketball and potentially going pro says a lot about being able to run a program successfully.
I could have conducted an entire interview just about the game last night vs. Gonzaga: what will you remember the most about that “instant classic”? I thought that it was a good game and we were in a good position for most of it. The 2 things that hurt us were the 11-minute stretch in the 2nd half when we did not make a single FG and the fact that we got almost doubled-up on the boards (Gonzaga had a 50-26 REB advantage). If the Bruins had made just a few more shots or only been out-rebounded by 10-15 then they would have won the game. All that being said, they were still in a position to win it at the very end, which says a lot when you consider how they played for most of the 2nd half. I was not like this in the stands yesterday but after a night of sleep I can reflect on it a little better. To be down by 10 PTS with under 3 minutes left and then come all the way back to take a lead…and then have it take a Suggs-type of shot to beat them: I am so proud of the way that UCLA fought back. Even though Tyger did not make a shot in the 2nd half he had several AST to help fuel the comeback. He also did not shy away from the moment, which is why he took the final shot that would have tied the game. He had a tough 2nd half and it hurts to lose: a lot of people picked them to go far this year but I am still proud of how they competed.
When people look back on Tyger’s college career, how do you want him to be remembered the most, and what is the next step? It is crazy that my son could be considered 1 of the best PGs in the country this year and in UCLA history: I say that humbly but if you look at the past 4 years he really did all of that. His goal is to play in the NBA. He is not 6’5” but I still feel that he can be a great PG in the NBA. His path is unknown: he may or may not get drafted but I think that he can make an NBA roster and thrive once he gets there. He is a winner who has won at every level. When he was in high school at La Lumiere he played with a pair of future 1st round picks in Jaren Jackson Jr./Jordan Poole…yet he averaged 16 PPG/7 APG while making his teammates look good. He does not have to be a superstar but he still has superstar numbers. He was actually the leading scorer for the Bruins in the NCAA tourney last year. He does not have to be the main guy but will make your team better and help you win games. If you already have All-Star-caliber guys he will make them better and still put up numbers of his own. I feel like he can run a team and elevate the players around him. That is who he is: he makes people better and does whatever is necessary to win. In high school he was touted by coaches as a player who can impact a game without scoring a single PT…but if you need him to score 30 PTS or control the tempo of the game then he will do whatever is asked of him. Here is my “Lavar Ball” dad take: any NBA team that needs a point guard should not pass on Tyger Campbell!