After a decade at Manhattan, Stores and Wilson now making their own way, yet still together

RaShawn Stores (left) and Tyler Wilson (right) reunite after first encounter as opponents Thursday. Stores is now on staff at NJIT, with Wilson an assistant at New Hampshire, after both spent 10 years together as teammates and coaches at Manhattan. (Photo by Jaden Daly/Daly Dose Of Hoops)

For a decade, RaShawn Stores and Tyler Wilson were seemingly inseparable.

Backcourt partners for three years at Manhattan College and assistant coaches at their alma mater for five more, the pair furthered their careers last year when Stores became the Jaspers’ interim head coach, with Wilson as his right-hand man after Steve Masiello was fired less than two weeks before the season started.

The Bronx natives went their separate ways in the offseason after neither were retained, thus embarking upon the next chapter in their basketball lives. Fittingly, each landed in the same conference as both accepted assistant coach positions at America East schools, Stores at NJIT and Wilson at New Hampshire. The two faced off against one another for the first time this past Thursday, the latest step in a journey traveled by two friends closer than some biological brothers in their first taste of life outside their backyard.

“I think it’s been going good,” Stores said of the experiences he and Wilson now share separately, but also jointly at the same time. “We spoke about adversity when we were together last year, and some things didn’t come out the way we wanted to. But God always makes a way, and we both landed on our feet.”

RaShawn Stores shares a pregame chat with Tyler Wilson before NJIT hosted New Hampshire Thursday. (Photo by Jaden Daly/Daly Dose Of Hoops)

“I think our experience together prepared us for where we’re at right now,” Wilson admitted. “We’ve been through a lot together for over a decade. This is my best friend in the world. We talk to each other about difficulties we may face at our current situations with guys, we help each other through stuff as if we were still teammates, and it’s good to just compete against each other.”

“And get the win,” he quipped, making good on a boast he made in May, when he playfully claimed his UNH team would get the better of Stores’ NJIT squad.

Ironically, Wilson’s road to the coaching ranks came as somewhat of a surprise, as he openly recalled. But through the fire, he eventually carved his own niche, much as he did for four years as one of Manhattan’s floor generals.

“Tyler didn’t talk,” Rasheen Davis, who recruited Wilson at Manhattan and is now an assistant at Seton Hall, recounted. “He did talk on the court, but off the court, he didn’t talk. And RaShawn was feisty, that was one of his better attributes. He was a lockdown defender, but RaShawn did a hell of a job in a very tough situation, and Tyler seems to be blossoming into his role. I’m excited for both them guys. Those are my brothers. I love them dudes, and I’m not surprised because they were leaders for us. We had some talented dudes, and I think their talent was their leadership skills.”

“I’ve grown a lot,” said Wilson. “I attribute that to Coach Davis, Ray, Rhamel (Brown). You watch other people who were great leaders, and it helps you become your own leader in your own right, you find your own voice. I’m thankful for all those guys that I was fortunate to be around, and I think I’m finding my voice. Playing for Coach Mas is like coaching on the fly. Being a point guard for him, you gotta think like a coach, so he kind of prepares you for this moment, for this opportunity. I’m grateful. I’m happy where I am. I didn’t expect it, but I’m happy to be here.”

While Wilson may not have seen this moment coming, Masiello — who immediately tabbed him to join his staff shortly after graduating in 2017, one year after Stores had made a similar transition — certainly did, and feels almost like a proud father of sorts as he watches each of his former players and protégés progress.

“I think one of the reasons we were successful was because we had guys who were like coaches on the floor,” Masiello, now the associate head coach at St. John’s, assessed. “And Tyler and Ray, and even Rhamel, were extremely bright young men long before they came to Manhattan. Tyler had great pedigree playing at Rice High School and finishing at Hayes, and RaShawn was just a natural leader from the day he got there, so I knew whatever they did, they would be successful at it. I thought they had a natural gift for coaching because they were such great leaders for their team, so it kind of made sense. I’m not surprised where they are and where they’ll wind up.”

“As point guards, we always think that we can run a team,” Stores opined. “And then when you’ve got Coach Mas telling you, ‘you’ll be a leader one day, you’ll be a head coach one day,’ it was always probably in our calling. And he helped guide us through that and got us the opportunity as we started with him. We got to learn a lot, learn the game from him, and continue to grow. I think we were able to grow on and off the court from that.”

That evolution took on a deeper context last season when Stores was thrust into adverse circumstances on October 25, becoming the youngest head coach in the nation last year at just 31 years of age. Still, he managed to keep the majority of the team together and rally it around the unkind hand it was dealt, keeping the Jaspers near the top of the MAAC standings for a majority of the season in a revelatory experience that made him a worthy choice as Grant Billmeier’s first hire upon taking the reins at NJIT.

“RaShawn’s a head coach,” Masiello declared. “He should be a head coach right now. I think this situation will springboard him into a really good one in the next couple of years, so I’m really happy and proud of him. He’s a natural at it, and I think he showed that last year with the way he got guys to handle tough times in an extremely difficult situation and how he managed that. And Tyler’s one of the best basketball minds I’ve been around, a phenomenal mind, a great work ethic, unbelievable person. So they’re just two really special, special people.”

“I’m sure playing for Mas all those years and working for Mas, he was prepared,” Davis said of Stores. “The way we were handled as assistants, (Masiello) wanted us to act like head coaches, so when (Stores) did what he did, he was prepared. But obviously, you've gotta actually do it, and I thought for the most part, he did a really decent job in a very difficult situation. Hopefully he’s doing the same job for Grant.”

Breaking away from scenery that has been familiar for most of one’s adult life can be daunting once it happens. However, once outside the proverbial comfort zone, one is compelled to adapt to new surroundings and mature along the way, something Masiello believes will serve a greater benefit as time goes by.

“I think this year, for both of them, is going to be the most important year of their career,” he said of Stores and Wilson acclimating to their new situations. “They’re both in unfamiliar territory, they’re both working for different people, they’re not with me in the sense that I’m their coach and they’ve been with me since they were 17 and 18 years old.”

“This is new for them, and when you’re in uncomfortable situations, you have no choice but to grow as a person and as a coach. I think both of them are going to have a different perspective looking back on it, and I think this year will be really beneficial to their careers. They’ll really appreciate it and be better for it.”

Wilson arrived on the Manhattan campus for the first time in the summer of 2013 with considerable hype, projected to make an immediate impact on a team already featuring a pair of all-MAAC guards in Michael Alvarado and George Beamon. He quickly became, as Davis put it, “the right fit for what we needed,” and was among the heart and soul of the Jaspers’ two MAAC championship teams in 2014 and 2015.

But of all the things Wilson and Stores have accomplished together, the most prideful to the latter is the ability to watch both their tales unfold in real time and continue to withstand all that has been thrown at them through various walks of life.

“When (Wilson) got to Draddy, he was the one that was supposed to come in and start right away, when him and his dad were on the side,” Stores recollected with a wide smile. “It was great. I was the pit bull at the time and he was the pup, and he started growing and growing. Then we would come into games together, and we both turned into pit bulls. It’s just a great experience to see what we did on the court together, winning two championships, and now what we’re doing together on the sidelines.”

“That’s a little brother to me. I always tell him that he’s my heart every day. We speak every day, so as long as both of us landed on our feet, at the end of the day, that’s all that matters. And this battle made it more fun.”