Resilient and Ready, Latrell Wrightsell Returns to the Court

When Latrell Wrightsell Jr. tore his Achilles tendon last December, his mom, Chandra, packed her bags and moved from Omaha, Nebraska, to Tuscaloosa. For five months, she watched “Trelly,” her quiet and nonchalant son, relearn how to walk, then run, then trust his body again.

At first, he thought he might have to quit basketball. Chandra recalled him saying, “Maybe God has a different plan for me.” The same calm kid who once turned a laundry basket into a roller coaster down the stairs was now facing a climb that demanded all the belief he had left. At times, the pain was agonizing to watch as an outsider, but Latrell just kept moving, quietly, like always.

Growing up in Omaha, Trelly wasn’t the loudest kid in the room, but he didn’t need to be. He carried himself with an easy confidence. Whether it was school or sports, he had a quiet drive to get better and a genuine curiosity about everything around him. That steady approach stuck with him; the same focus he had as a kid still shows every time he steps on the court.

Wrightsell’s talent was clear long before high school or college staffers took notice. In third grade, while playing AAU, he scored 89 points in the National Select championship game, a performance that left Chandra certain he was destined for something special.

“I said, this kid has the intellect, the basketball IQ — he just knows the game,” Chandra Wrightsell told BamaCentral in an exclusive interview. “I said, you know what? He's gonna be something great because he studies the game, he knows the game, and the way he performed in that game showed it. And he just kept growing from there.”

Latrell Wrightsell Jr. — Shandra Wrightsell

“He’s always been very personable, very giving, very loving, and just loves sports,” Chandra said. “He studies the game — that’s been true since he was three with a ball in his hand. His faith is very deep, he loves God and Jesus, and he doesn’t mind sharing that with others to help them. He also cares about family and always wants family around.”

By high school, while playing at Omaha Central, the same quiet determination — what his mom jokingly called “a terrorist in disguise” — often left Wrightsell overlooked by scouts. But his senior season still brought a defining moment. On Jan. 3, 2020, against top-ranked Millard North and future Wake Forest and NBA guard Hunter Sallis, he erupted for 31 points in a 93-91 upset win. Even though he had already committed to Cal State Fullerton, that game became a turning point in his mom’s eyes, proof that her son could rise to the moment when everything was on the line.

Committing to the Titans, he would be starting his collegiate basketball career nearly 24 hours away from home in Omaha, in Orange County. The transition wouldn’t be easy, but Wrightsell embraced the new environment and used it to grow both on and off the court.

“He had no fear or anxiety about going out there,” Chandra said. “He wanted a new challenge. He wanted to pursue his own, you know, make a name for himself. And so I think that helped him grow. It also helped him grow a lot as far as maturity in life.”

Wrightsell immediately made his presence felt in Fullerton. As a freshman in 2020-21, he started nine games and averaged nine points per contest, leading the Big West with a 94.6% free-throw percentage. In 2021-2022, he played in 31 of the Titans’ 32 games, averaging 6.4 points per game, and helped lead Cal State Fullerton to its second NCAA Tournament appearance in five years and fourth in school history.

Things clicked for Wrightsell in his junior season. He was named to the All-Big West First Team, averaged a team-high 16.3 points, ranked third in the conference in three-pointers and helped lead the Titans to back-to-back Big West Tournament championship game appearances. By then, it was apparent that he had outgrown the program.

After his junior season, Wrightsell entered the transfer portal with plenty of options. He could have stayed on the West Coast at schools like USC or Oregon, or even joined Alabama’s opponent this weekend, St. John’s. But after an official visit to Alabama, the Wrightsell family had no hesitation in choosing his next stop.

“When we went to Alabama, we canceled all other visits,” Chandra said. “What made the difference was how the program ran. More importantly, I would say Coach [Nate] Oats and Coach [Preston] Murphy were key factors. Coach Oats knew everything about his statistics, showed it, and then showed he cared. What we loved the most is that in that meeting, Coach Oats said, ‘I can’t promise you that you will play or even start, but if you prove yourself and based upon the statistics, you will have great success here.’ He was very transparent and made us feel at home. And similarly with Coach Murphy.”

Wrightsell picked up where he left off immediately in Tuscaloosa. He ended the season averaging 8.9 points, 3.0 rebounds and 1.4 assists per game while shooting a team-best 44.7 percent from three-point range, the fourth-highest single-season mark in Alabama history. He scored double figures in 10 games, including eight in SEC play; Alabama was undefeated in those games. During the NCAA Tournament, he shot 52.9 percent from the field and 63.6 percent from three, a key marksman on Alabama's run to its first-ever men’s Final Four.

Wrightsell carried the momentum from March Madness into his graduate season in the fall of 2024. He averaged 11.5 points, 1.8 rebounds and 2.0 assists per game while shooting 42 percent from three-point range, becoming an important piece on a loaded Alabama roster aiming for another deep NCAA Tournament run.

But his season came to a sudden and shocking halt in November. Just a minute into the second half of the Players Era Festival Championship Game, against Oregon, in Las Vegas, with the score tied at 41, Alabama pushed the ball in transition. Mark Sears passed to Wrightsell, who rose for a three-pointer, but the shot bounced off the rim. Going after the rebound, he landed awkwardly and immediately fell to the floor in visible pain.

It was later confirmed that Wrightsell had torn his Achilles tendon, abruptly ending his final collegiate season. An Achilles rupture is one of the most feared injuries in basketball. A report from SB Nation found that seven of 18 NBA players who suffered the injury between 1988 and 2011 never returned to the court. Those who did typically missed more than a season and often struggled to regain their previous explosiveness, efficiency and playing time.

The recovery was grueling. Wrightsell considered quitting basketball multiple times, testing both his faith and his resilience. Chandra remembers the moment in the locker room when they confirmed the injury and her son feared his career was over.

“I had just barely enough time to go home,” Chandra said. “Me and my husband came back down for surgery, and we made the decision for me to stay for five months during his recovery. So I actually moved to Alabama to help him through it. I saw all the ups and the downs, and I heard him saying, ‘Maybe this is not for me. Maybe God has a different plan.’ That’s what he kept saying.

“It was hard not being able to do anything about his pain and the mental anguish, because he did feel like he wanted to give up. No matter how much a mom is there, that mental anguish was something he had to traverse through on his own.”

In late June, a lifeline was thrown to Latrell. The NCAA granted him a medical redshirt, giving him the option to return to Alabama for a sixth and final season of college basketball. The resilience he developed during his recovery, combined with encouragement from his teammates — including Houston Mallette, who sat out most of last season and had known and played against Wrightsell during his time at Pepperdine, also in California — and staff, convinced him to come back for one last season.

“When I went through my injury, I just realized I was stronger than what I thought,” Wrightsell said at the 2025 SEC Basketball Tip Off. “Obviously, with an Achilles injury, you think you’re done for good. I thought I was just not going to play basketball anymore. But being able to overcome that and push through and persevere through all the setbacks I’ve had within the injury has been really cool for me to see when I look back at the process.”

That resilience, combined with a relentless work ethic, has brought Wrightsell to this point. He played in an October exhibition against Furman, and he is expected to suit up for his first meaningful game in more than 300 days against No. 5 St. John’s on Saturday, Nov. 8.

“When I tell you he works hard, this guy probably gets four to five hours of sleep and can get right back up,” Chandra said. “He's always wanting to be in the gym to work out. He has a work ethic that is just unbelievable. I would say a lot of people don’t know that because he seems so calm and cool and collected. But his work ethic is just unbelievable. When he’s not in the gym, he’s working out, doing toe raises, or doing things at home while watching TV. It’s just unbelievable. It never stops.”

His family, including his sister, who is currently pursuing a nursing degree, will be inside Madison Square Garden this Saturday. Chandra and her husband plan to attend every Alabama game possible this season.

“I’m so excited. I don’t know if I’m going to cry. I think I’m going to have so many mixed emotions,” Chandra said. “I’m just going to be so happy that he’s finally at this point in his life where he can actually get on that court. It’s been a long time coming and it’s going to be a blessing. My emotions are probably going to be just excited and joyful.

“He’s approaching the game knowing you can never take any day for granted. He’s always had a great work ethic, but now he’s saying, ‘I’m going to utilize every single day for what God gives me to be better than I was the day before in my game.’”

From turning laundry baskets into roller coasters as a kid, to stepping onto the court at The "Cathedral of College Basketball." Wrightsell has always faced challenges with the same quiet confidence. The journey from those daring childhood stunts to recovering from a torn Achilles shows just how much he’s grown, but at his core, he’s still the same kid from Omaha who is a leader through action.