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Rejuvenated LaTulip savors game time at Wright State

Standing at the free throw line with a game on the line is familiar territory for Mike LaTulip.

But LaTulip, by his own admission, was in a bit of an unfamiliar situation as he prepared to shoot his first free throws in his first official game in a Wright State uniform. Only 22 seconds remained and his team was clinging to a 3-point lead in the season opener at Southern Illinois in Carbondale.

"I was thinking, 'I haven't done this in a long time,' " LaTulip said. "Then you revert back to, it's still basketball, it's still something you've done your whole life."

The former all-state guard from Prospect calmly hit both free throws. Then he hit two more with eight seconds left to help Wright State to an 85-81 victory.

"You have to believe in yourself no matter what the situation is," LaTulip said, "and no matter how long it's been since you've done something."

LaTulip would not say he is making up for lost time from the last four years he spent at Illinois. He knew what he was getting into when he joined the program as a walk-on and played just 129 minutes in three seasons.

Now he is back on the court on a regular basis. LaTulip has started every game heading into his return home when 6-3 Wright State visits Loyola at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Gentile Arena on Chicago's North Side.

The 6-foot-1, 175-pound guard is averaging 8.3 points and 3 rebounds in nearly 27 minutes a game. He is tied for second on the team in 3-pointers made with 19 at a 46.3-percent success rate.

"It's been awesome," LaTulip said of the transition athletically and academically from Champaign to Dayton, Ohio. "Part of that has to do with my teammates. They have been really accepting of me since Day One and it's a hard-working group of guys. It's been everything you could ask for with a fifth-year option."

Wright State was not one of the options LaTulip had when he was averaging 22 points a game during his senior season for Prospect in 2011-12. He did have Division I scholarship offers but wanted to give Big Ten basketball a shot.

So he went to Illinois, where most of his work was done behind the scenes as he averaged 1.3 points in 44 games. When LaTulip knew he was going to redshirt his senior year, he started to work at finding out who might be interested in having him play as a fifth-year graduate student.

"I had not played much before my senior season so I didn't know what the market was," LaTulip said. "Schools that saw me in high school knew I was going against Big Ten players in practice every day."

And he remained committed to helping the Fighting Illini in practice last year. The relationships he formed with players and coaches meant too much for him to be distracted with shopping his skills to other schools until the season was over.

It proved to be a fortuitous choice. On April 4, Scott Nagy was hired as Wright State's new head coach after winning 410 games in 21 years at South Dakota State.

Nagy pursued LaTulip when he was at Prospect. Now Nagy was recruiting him again and LaTulip, older and wiser to the recruiting game and what also mattered on the court, wasted no time as he made his decision during his campus visit.

"Wright State checked all the boxes," LaTulip said. "It was a chance to play, a chance to win and a great coaching staff.

"Going through it a second time ... different things matter to you. When you come out of high school you want to be the man, you want to score a lot and you want an opportunity right away. I was much more careful the second time around."

It would be easy for LaTulip to have the attitude that he should be getting more chances to "be the man" since he came from a program in one of the best leagues in the country. But LaTulip knows if he defends and rebounds he will get his shots.

"When you are a fifth-year senior you start to be invested in a lot of things other than yourself," he said. "I want to have a lot of fun this year but it's not going to be a lot of fun if all you care about is yourself. I want to be a good teammate and coming here I can make an impact on some underclassmen and help the young guys out."

LaTulip has showed he can still fill it up when it's needed. In a win over Cal State Bakersfield he was 5-for-6 from behind the arc and finished with 18 points and 7 rebounds.

But LaTulip really wants to help the Raiders accomplish something that happened only twice in their history. They reached the NCAA tournament in 1993 and 2007.

"The biggest thing is you start to realize how important the little things are and how important it is to be disciplined," LaTulip said. "We're a really disciplined team and hopefully that will carry us a long way in March."

Then LaTulip can start focusing more on his future. He wants to explore the possibility of playing professionally overseas but he is also intrigued by the options of coaching or trying to work in an NBA front office.

His immediate goal is to help Wright State rebound from losses to Georgia State and Penn State as it concludes a three-game road trip against the 7-2 Ramblers. The best part for LaTulip is he is no longer playing a bit part.

"It's nice to be out there again," LaTulip said. "I'm definitely not taking that for granted."

marty.maciaszek@gmail.com

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