Canucks' Tyler Myers happy for his NCAA basketball star little brother
Tyler Myers is keeping a close eye on the NCAA March Madness tournament, and not just because of his bracket.
The Vancouver Canucks defenceman says he has the University of Houston Cougars “going all the way,” and there’s a very good reason for that. His much younger brother, Quentin Grimes, is playing a starring role as a guard for Houston.
Grimes scored 22 points on Sunday, helping the No. 2 seed Cougars get past the Rutgers University Scarlet Knights, and into the Sweet 16. If they beat No. 11 seed Syracuse on Saturday, they’ll be into the Elite Eight.
Grimes and Myers have the same mother, Tonja Stelly, despite growing up apart in two different countries. Myers, 31, is 11 years older than his brother.
“We just didn’t get to spend a lot of time together growing up with the big age difference and him being down in Texas,” Myers told reporters from Vancouver today.
The two brothers were both born in Houston, but Myers moved to Calgary with his father at age 10, when Grimes was still a baby. Grimes, meanwhile, grew up with his mom in Houston. As such, the pair didn’t spend much time together as kids, but that doesn’t mean the brotherly love is absent.
“Always hope for the best for him and you take a look at what he’s been able to do throughout his university career here — he went through some adversity early on,” Myers said of his brother, who transferred from Kansas to Houston in 2018. “The work he’s put in to get where he is today shows what he’s made of and I’m really happy for him.”
The pair appear to have picked up the athletic gene from their mother, as Stelly excelled at both tennis and basketball. They both got their height from somewhere too, as Grimes is listed at six-foot-five. Myers is one of the tallest players in the NHL at six-foot-eight.
The brothers have a shot to make sporting history, depending on how Grimes’ career progresses. If Grimes plays in the NBA, he and Myers would become the first-ever brother duo to play in the NHL and NBA.
“I would love for us to be the first NHL and NBA brothers,” Grimes said in 2018. “My mom [would be] ecstatic to have two of her sons in two different leagues. We get the genes from her, so gotta give her all the credit.”
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