Sixth year senior Ryan Wade has pretty much been through it all at UW-Green Bay.

The 6’2” guard from Ann Arbor, Michigan has been through the lowest lows and some significant highs during his three seasons with the Phoenix, though unfortunately the program has had more lows than highs during his career.

His first season in Green Bay was the final season of the Will Ryan era – he was fired in January of 2023 – and the team finished a dismal 3-29 that season.  Last season, Wade was part of a team that saw a resurgence with the Phoenix completing one the best single season turnarounds in college basketball history under Sundance Wicks.

Now under his third head coach in as many seasons with the Phoenix, Green Bay again finds itself at the bottom of the Horizon League at 2-20 overall and is on a 17-game losing streak.

And while wins have yet to materialize, the Phoenix have been playing better basketball in the past five games or so and much of that can be contributed to Wade’s reemergence.

He played sparingly at the beginning of the season but has played at least 25 minutes in five of the team’s last six games and is averaging 8.2 points and 2.3 assists per game in that span while shooting 45.7% from the floor and 40.0% from behind the arc.

Compare that to the fact that Wade has appeared in 65 games for the Phoenix in his career and is averaging 2.9 points and 1.5 assists in 14.6 minutes per game over the past three years and you can see how much he has increased his production of late for a team that desperately needs it.

“Ryan Wade, look at how well he’s playing,” head coach Doug Gottlieb said after the loss to IU-Indy last week. “A guy who he’s been through everything, and he had every right when he wasn’t playing to pack it in.”

“But he’s an amazing young man.”

His veteran presence has brought some stability to the Phoenix ball handling department, which is led by junior Preston Ruedinger, the heart and soul of the program, but also features true freshman Ben Tweedy and to a lesser extent Jeremiah Johnson, another true freshman who usually plays more off the ball but can handle it as well. 

According to CBB Analytics, Green Bay’s best lineup over the past five games (minimum 10 possessions played) has been Wade, Ruedinger, and Johnson on the floor together with Mac Wrecke and Marcus Hall.  That group is +7 in the box score over a span that includes 37 possessions in 21 minutes played.  Their +19.1 net rating ranks in the top 70% of lineups in the country over that span. 

In addition to that lineup, with Yonatan Levy in the lineup instead of Wrecke, the Phoenix are +3 in 21 possessions over 14 minutes played.

In total, lineups that include the foursome of Wade, Ruedinger, Johnson, and Hall are +18 over the past five games.

As Gottlieb and his coaching staff continue to tinker with lineups to try and find the right combination to get the Phoenix over the hump, it certainly helps to have a reliable veteran like Wade ready to contribute when called upon, even as the team has not been able to close out games to end the longest losing streak in the program’s history.

“I commend our guys on fighting up until the end,” Gottlieb said after the loss to IU-Indy. “Our teams will never quit, ever. Period. Stop. Ever.”

And that certainly appears to be the case with the resurgent Ryan Wade.