LuHi to the LI Nets: How high school teammates Tyson Etienne and Frankie Policelli reunited in the G League

After spending six years apart, Tyson Etienne and Frankie Policelli are back at where they first met: the Long Island basketball scene.

The two native New Yorkers have both endured long, rootless journeys that at times have mirrored one another. However, the bulk of their individual journeys are very dissimilar. Differences in their career arcs aside, they both find themselves now just 15 minutes south of the arena they once shared at Long Island Lutheran, as they have landed roster spots with the Long Island Nets, the G League affiliate of the Brooklyn Nets.

“Both of those guys are huge contributors to the team,” Long Island Nets coach Mfon Udofia said. “Both are high-level people, not just players. On the basketball court, Tyson is as fiery as anybody. He’s always talking and making sure that joy is being brought to the locker room. Frankie’s fiery, too. He’s a really good three-point shooter, and with his size, that’s the most intriguing thing about him.”

Etienne, 25, was born and raised in Manhattan before moving to Englewood, N.J. and attending Dwight-Englewood School for his first two years of high school. He found his way onto the Long Island radar when he transferred to LuHi for his junior year of 2017-18 to join its storied basketball program, led by coach John Buck. The small-but-feisty guard brought a defensive tenacity and a three-point trigger to the backcourt that LuHi needed.

That same year, Policelli, 24, a tall, lanky forward with over 30-foot range and a sweet, lefty stroke from New Hartford in Oneida County, sought out a team with stronger opponents to play for as a high school senior. With Jay David, his AAU coach, already a member of Buck’s coaching staff and Donatas Kupsas, a summer ball teammate, already attending LuHi, Policelli decided to join them in Brookville.

Together, Etienne and Policelli made magic happen. The two bonded over their “new dude” status with LuHi and formed a friendship off the court.

“I was friends with Frankie,” Etienne said. “We probably both came into LuHi with the same emotions. We may show or express it differently, but we were in the same boat, so I took a gravitation towards him.”

Those good vibes carried onto the hardwood with them, as they helped the 2017-18 LuHi Crusaders finish 22-3 and clinch a berth in the New York State Federation tournament.

The two were happy to rekindle their friendship in a mutual, coincidental return to Long Island.

“We’re definitely friends,” Policelli said. “Me and Ty, we don’t really have to speak to understand what we’re thinking. I can just look at him, and we’ll already to know to do this or do that. Ty’s a little bit more vocal than me, so we handle the emotions in different ways, but we were always on the same page. Always been close.”

Though their career routes have intersected twice now — and in the same place — their trajectories after leaving each other were very different.

For Policelli, who graduated from LuHi in June 2018, he accepted an offer from the University of Dayton, a successful mid-major program in the Atlantic 10 Conference. As a freshman, Policelli was behind then-future Knicks first-round pick and current Indiana Pacer forward Obi Toppin on the roster. He appeared in 20 games and played just 96 minutes.

Etienne's journey

During that time, Etienne was finishing high school at the Putnam Science Academy in Connecticut, from where he graduated in 2019. Etienne rose to a four-star recruit, allowing him to earn a spot with Wichita State University: a high-major school in the American Athletic Conference (AAC).

Though his diploma is from Putnam Science Academy, Etienne earned a degree in basketball education from LuHi.

“From the day that I told Coach Buck that I was going to come to LuHi, I just asked him that he coach me hard,” Etienne said. “I didn’t want to fall short of anything, and I wanted to be put into the fire as much as possible everyday. Some days, that meant coaches getting on me about small details that maybe they’d let slide for others, but not for me.

“That prepared me to play for Coach Gregg Marshall — one of the toughest coaches in college basketball,” Etienne said. “LuHi helped me understand what it really meant to be successful, what it meant to be a leader of a team, and to impact winning.”

From 2019 through 2022 at Wichita State, Etienne played in 80 games, averaging 13.2 points in 30.4 minutes per game while shooting 36.4% from three-point range and 77.2% from the free-throw line. As a sophomore, Etienne racked up 16.3 points, 2.5 assists and 1 steal per game while shooting 39.2% from three, winning him the AAC Co-Player of the Year award. He helped lead the Shockers to a regular-season title and an at-large bid to the 2021 NCAA Tournament.

As a junior, Etienne averaged 14.9 points and 2 assists per game and made the All-AAC Third Team before entering the 2022 NBA Draft.

Later that fall, he got his first professional opportunity when he signed with the College Park SkyHawks: the Atlanta Hawks’ G League team. He played with them for two two seasons before being traded this past fall to the Nets. 

Etienne has started every game for the Long Island Nets in the early goings of this season. The combo guard is averaging 11.7 points and 4.2 rebounds per game. Policelli, a forward, has seen limited action in two games. 

Policelli's journey

During Etienne’s quick ascent to the pros, Policelli took twice as long to break in. He left Dayton after one year and returned to Long Island to play for coach Geno Ford at Stony Brook University. After redshirting in 2019-20, Policelli became a regular for the Seawolves over the next two years, during which time he shot 34.1% from three-point range and became a fan favorite, earning nicknames such as “Frankie Buckets” and “The Policeman.”

Once the 2022 offseason came, Policelli worked with Stony Brook’s staff on his post and mid-range game to reinvent himself as a scorer while also learning how to rebound more effectively. His leadership and work ethic shown during the offseason led Ford to name him team co-captain alongside Tyler Stephenson-Moore: another LuHi alumnus.

Policelli’s offseason led to his best collegiate year, averaging a career-high 13.7 points per game while shooting career-bests from the field (42.2%) and from deep (36.8%). He also led what was then known as the Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) with 9.4 rebounds per game. His 7.8 defensive rebounds per game ranked fifth in the nation.

“He was a very good worker, and that was the reason Frankie got so much better,” Ford said. “He came to us as a guy who had a reputation for not loving physicality and for being a standstill shooter and he transformed himself into being one of the premier defensive rebounders in the country. He was really a sponge and he wanted to be a real player. He’s an easy guy to root for.”

After earning a degree from Stony Brook, Policelli stayed in college for a sixth year and transferred within the conference to the College of Charleston. He helped Charleston win its second consecutive CAA tourney, as he scored 12 points in the championship game against Stony Brook to help his new squad beat his old one in overtime. He posted a .611/.500/.875 shooting line during the Cougars’ conference playoff run and was named to the CAA’s All-Tournament Team.

Though his career transformation occurred in his fifth year of college, it was the values instilled in him at LuHi that set him on that path.

“I was the new guy at LuHi, so I had to learn a different system and learn how to be adaptive,” Policelli said. “I just had to flow and learn new things on the fly. That’s what I took with me at every stop on the way. Same thing with Dayton, same thing with Stony Brook, same thing with Charleston. It taught me how to be a professional at a young age.”

Policelli’s skillset displayed during his 1,200-point, 700-rebound college career landed him on the Nets’ radar, as he attended a local tryout and did well enough to earn a contract.

For Buck, seeing his two former players reunite locally at the professional level is gratifying.

“It’s amazing,” Buck said. “This is now professional basketball. It’s just another level of the funnel getting a little smaller, so to see them doing that is a great credit to their work ethic, their abilities and their resilience. It’s really cool, especially since they’re with the Long Island Nets.”