When the Cyclones didn’t recruit him during his high school career, Tyler Ellerman put Iowa State out of the picture as a potential location to play basketball in college.

Despite offers to play Division III basketball for nearly every school in the national Association of Intercollegiate Athletics in the state of Iowa, the Dallas Center, Iowa, native chose Iowa State for its agriculture program because he didn’t want to play for a small school.

While focusing on his classes his first two years, Tyler worked on his game at the recreation centers on campus until an email to Jeff Rutter, director of Basketball Operations, landed him his biggest chance yet.

“I tried out, played against a couple of the players, then they asked the players if I was going to be good enough to help the team and stuff, and they put in a good word for me, and they wanted me on the team,” Tyler said.

Easy as pie, Tyler shook off the rust to play his most competitive matchup since taking his high school to their first state tournament two years earlier.

Well, not quite.

After he emailed Rutter in December asking if the team would have open tryouts, Tyler was told those would not be until spring or the summer, if necessary.

He didn’t let that discourage him from his goal of walking onto the team and stayed in shape with lifting and playing pickup games in hopes that his luck would turn around.

“I was always working out, just expecting something to come up,” Tyler said.

Even though Iowa State wasn’t recruiting him in high school, he was always on the coaching staff’s radar. The 6-foot-8-inch forward had been to ISU basketball camps in the past, and players that big are usually tough to forget.

Assistant coach T.J. Otzelberger deals heavily with recruiting for the Cyclones. After Royce White left for the NBA and center Jordan Railey left the team to transfer elsewhere, the team needed another big body in practice and Ellerman’s name came to mind.

“He was more somebody that we had in the back of our mind if we were ever in that situation, and up until that point, we hadn’t taken any walk-ons or anybody from an open tryout, but obviously we remembered Tyler and thought very highly of him,” Otzelberger said.

As part of his tryout, he had to go up against 6-foot-9-inch forward Anthony Booker. A bigger opponent than what he was used to playing against at the Lied Recreation Center, Tyler said it gave him a quick realization of where he was at and where he needed to get to.

“I didn’t expect him to be so strong and so big,” Tyler said. “I showed up and it was just like ‘Wow, this is what a D-I athlete is like, and this is where I have to be,’ and it just put it in perspective for me of where I have to get to if I really want to get some playing time and if I want to help the team out more.”

Tyler is not the first in his family to play Division I basketball, either. Mark, Tyler’s father, played basketball at what is now West Texas A&M University after two years at Ellsworth College.

A two-time letterwinnner for the Buffaloes in 1982 and 1983, Mark coached Tyler and his sister Suzanne in elementary school and junior high but gives the credit to his other coaches.

“I worked with him and helped him the best I could, but he learned a lot from his other coaches through the years,” Mark said before adding with a laugh: “I helped some.”

Since coming to Iowa State, Mark and the rest of Tyler’s family had not really seen him play since high school.

They got their first look at his improved game, as well as his new teammates, at the Capital City League in Des Moines this summer, and Mark said he was very proud.

“I’ve been impressed that he has improved since high school, since that was the last time we’ve watched him play, so we’ve felt that he’s improved a lot since that time,” Mark said. “Hopefully he’ll have a fun year and a good year and can help coach Hoiberg out in whatever way he can.”

For now, Ellerman is just going to be a big body in practice to play against the starters with the scout team. With that being said, Otzelberger said if he continues to progress, who knows what can happen.

Just making the team might be good enough for some people, but Tyler said this is just the beginning.

“This is just my foot in the door, and now I’m just trying to prove myself that I deserve to be in there and I just need to try and get better every day.”