Inside The Huskies

Huskies Reach Out to Shooting Guard in Portal with Local Ties

Tanner Toolson grew up in Vancouver, Washington, and has played for Utah Valley and BYU.
Dan Raley|
Utah Valley guard Tanner Toolson (5) tries to get around Stanford guard Oziyah Sellers (4).
Utah Valley guard Tanner Toolson (5) tries to get around Stanford guard Oziyah Sellers (4). | Neville E. Guard-Imagn Images

The son of a former NBA player, Tanner Toolson is in the transfer portal after previously having played for Utah Valley and BYU.

A 6-foot-5, 200-pound guard, he's drawn a decent amount of attention so far, having heard from BYU again, California, Colorado State, Creighton, Hawaii, Memphis, Santa Clara, Utah State and Washington.

For those who don't remember the connection, Toolson was named Washington's 2020 Mr. Basketball after leading his Union High School team from Vancouver to a 27-1 record and a third-place state finish at the Tacoma Dome, all of this coming when the COVID pandemic was beginning to take hold.

In the five years that have transpired, he's served a two-year Mormon mission in Jacksonville, Florida, and spent an injury-filled season at BYU that eventually forced a redshirt and led him to transfer to Utah Valley five miles away.

Now he's on the move again, with reports he will visit Memphis soon. He has two seasons of eligibility remaining.

As for that local connection, Toolson's father, Andy, took up residence in Vancouver after playing two seasons for the Utah Jazz five years apart, spending several years competing in Greek and Spain leagues and serving four years as a BYU assistant coach.

An inch shorter than his dad, Tanner Toolson plays a fairly physical brand of basketball, especially for a shooting guard.

This past season, he averaged 13.3 points and 4 rebounds per game for a 25-9 team that advanced to the NIT. He shot 45.3 percent from the field, 34.9 from 3-point range.

This Toolson has been back to the state a couple of times to play Seattle University, and it seemed to go well. The Wolverines split a couple of games, winning 70-66 this season and losing 62-61 a year ago.

Actually, he's 4-1 against Seattle U at all sites. If he ended up with the Huskies, he would have a chance to add to that.

To get the latest UW football and basketball news, go to si.com/college/washington

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Dan Raley
DAN RALEY

Dan Raley has worked for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, as well as for MSN.com and Boeing, the latter as a global aerospace writer. His sportswriting career spans four decades and he's covered University of Washington football and basketball during much of that time. In a working capacity, he's been to the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, the MLB playoffs, the Masters, the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship and countless Final Fours and bowl games.

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