There was an unusually loud roar from the Fiserv Forum crowd when No. 13 scored his first points of the night two weeks ago during the Knicks at Bucks game in Milwaukee.
And no, it wasn’t Ryan Rollins in the black and white No. 13 from the home team that caused the noise, it was somebody else. Somebody who has quite the history in the home arena of the Bucks.
That somebody was former Marquette All-American Tyler Kolek.
The kid from Cumberland, Rhode Island made his return to Fiserv Forum in New York’s 116-107 win over Milwaukee on March 28. Kolek finished with five points and five assists in 17 minutes of action.
“It felt good,” Kolek said after the game about being back at Fiserv Forum for the first time. “We walked in earlier for shoot around, I just looked up at the championship banner, all the numbers we got retired, it’s pretty special.
“Got a lot of wins in this building, so to come back and get another one is pretty fun.”
It was a homecoming over a year in the making for Kolek, who had not played in a game at Fiserv Forum since Feb. 28, 2024, when he left Marquette’s 91-69 win over Providence early with an oblique injury that sidelined him for the remainder of the regular season and Big East Tournament.
Kolek captured the hearts of many MU fans with plenty of memorable moments — like when he scored his and-one basket to seal the deal in 2021 against then-No. 10 Illinois, or his infamous “F*** ’em” quote at Big East media day in 2022, just to name a few.
And now, the Marquette star has just finished his first full regular season in the NBA after being selected 34th overall last summer by the Portland Trail Blazers and then traded on draft night to the Knicks.
Injuries and an increasingly better play lead to more opportunities late in the year
After averaging 9.6 rebounds and seven assists across five strong games at the Summer League in Las Vegas last summer, Kolek did enough to make the Knicks’ opening night roster when the season started. The rookie guard scored his first points in NY’s first game against the Boston Celtics Oct. 22 with a 3-pointer late in the game.
Kolek didn’t see much time at the beginning of the season, but injuries to other members of the Knicks’ backcourt in late March opened the door for the 6-foot-3 guard to see some extended minutes on the floor.
“There’s things he does extremely well,” Knicks head coach Tom Thibodeau said. “Other things that he learns each game. So, the more he does it, the better he’s going to get.”
Kolek made the most of his opportunities, averaging three points per contest, 5.7 assists and just 1.1 turnovers in 17 minutes over his last eight games of the season. That included a stretch from March 22 to March 28 where his assist-to-turnover ratio was 29-1 across 73 minutes of play.
“I feel good just going out there running the team, getting us organized,” Kolek said. “I think that’s the biggest thing. If I’m out there just running to the corner or not calling plays and we look stagnant, that’s on me, because I’m a point guard and I’ve got to command the team while I’m out there.”
Kolek has had quite a group of guys to learn from this season, including former All-NBA players like Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns and all-defensive caliber players like OG Anunoby and Mikal Bridges.
“Last year in college, I was the veteran who the guys looked to with how things were done in our whole program,” Kolek said. “But now it’s completely different. I was buried on the bench, three injuries, four injuries happened and now, I’m out there playing every single night.
“All these guys get me prepared for, staying ready, because they always tell me, ‘You never know when your moments come,’ and it’s true. 70 games in and just like that, it happens.”
How Kolek’s time at MU helped prepare him for the pro game
Among those present for Kolek’s return to Fiserv Forum was his former head coach Shaka Smart, front and center. Kolek was one of the first (and only) transfers that Smart has brought in during his coaching career at Marquette, and it’s safe to say the move worked out pretty well for everybody.
After senior guard Kam Jones was announced as a consensus All-American back in the middle of March, Smart made it a point to mention that Jones was his second All-American guard in a row, giving proper shine to Kolek — who earned such honors twice.
“Did we know Tyler was going to be as good as he ended up being? I had a sense he was going to be really good, you know playing for the New York Knicks, ah,” Smart said with a grin.
But it did happen. 75 wins, thousands of points and hundreds of assists later, Kolek was on his way to the NBA, but none of it would’ve been possible without Smart and Marquette. However, the NBA is a different ballgame than college, and Kolek went from being one of the best players on the court every single night, to a rookie that is just trying to carve out any type of role he can on a playoff team with a roster full of stars.
“You just have a lot of great players around you up here,” Kolek said. “Obviously, I had Oso (Ighodaro), Kam, and Stevie (Mitchell and (David) Joplin, but now I’ve got Karl-Anthony Towns, Mikal Bridges, Jalen Brunson, all these guys around you who are great players. You’ve got to look to get them going because that’s what gets the team going, whereas maybe, if I’m in college, I gotta get going to get the team going.”
Another Marquette connection that is currently in the NBA is MU basketball alum and Milwaukee Bucks head coach Doc Rivers. Rivers, who has remained close to the program over the years and has gotten an even closer look since becoming Milwaukee’s head coach last season, said that he wasn’t surprised one bit to see his fellow Golden Eagle succeeding at the highest level.
“He’s just one of those guys that’s just going to keep beating the odds,” Rivers said. “Keep playing. Ten years from now, he’ll still be in the league. It’s just who he is.”
And of course, after the win over the Bucks, Kolek had to poke some fun at the hometown Milwaukee crowd, saying that Marquette has them beat for now.
“I said to Coach [Smart] right before the game started, ‘It looks like a bye game in here.’ The crowd wasn’t packed like our normal games.”
The Knicks finished the regular season with a 51-31 record, good enough to earn the third seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs. They will take on the Detroit Pistons in a best-of-seven series that is set to begin Saturday in New York.
With Brunson, Miles McBride and Cameron Payne all being back from injury now, the chances of Kolek seeing meaningful minutes in the playoffs are low. However, the late-season minutes that he was able to garner could mutually benefit himself and the Knicks if a situation arises in the playoffs where his number is called.
“Yeah, absolutely,” Kolek said in response to being asked if his experience could help come playoff time. “Just getting that real game experience, I was in there the last five minutes of the fourth quarter (against the Bucks), that’s pressure time and it was able to give me game reps of that live on the defensive end and offensive end.”
This story was written by Matthew Baltz. He can be reached at matthew.baltz@marquette.edu or on Twitter/X @MatthewBaltzMU.