Tuesday, February 24, 2009
NORMAN, Okla. — Things could have been different in the Lloyd Noble Center Monday night.
Never mind the game. Last recruiting season, Kansas coach Bill Self was working hard to bring in Willie Warren to fill out his class.
It was a long process, and Warren kept delaying his decision.
“Coach was recruiting him a lot and he was supposed to come here,” Kansas freshman Tyshawn Taylor said. “Coach kind of hesitated on recruiting me because of him. I felt like I had something to prove.”
Warren eventually spurned Kansas for Oklahoma, and Taylor, who originally committed to Marquette, was looking for a new school after Marquette coach Tom Crean left for Indiana. Taylor scheduled a visit to Lawrence but committed before taking it.
“We’ve been pretty fortunate,” Self said of snagging Taylor.
Monday night, in the biggest game of the season, Taylor played what Self called the best game of his college career. Taylor scored a career-high 26 points, out-dueling Warren by three points and helping spur Kansas’ crucial 16-0 run in the first half.
Taylor averaged just 4.3 points in the Jayhawks’ previous three games.
“Coach has been getting on me and I’ve been getting a little down on myself,” Taylor said. “I just felt like today was one of the days when I needed to step up.”
During a three-minute stretch in the first half, Taylor scored 11 points to help turn a 22-8 deficit into a 23-22 lead. Taylor’s second bucket in that stretch was a banked-in three-pointer.
“I just kind of smiled because I knew Coach was probably going crazy,” Taylor said. “That was the confidence booster I needed.”
Self agreed that crazy shots like that tend to pump up a struggling player. Taylor led all players with 16 points at halftime.
Taylor’s steal and dunk 2:30 into the second half catapulted Kansas to its 20-point lead. Taylor dunked so hard that he fell down after slamming it through.
Early in the season, it looked like Taylor would consistently be the third scoring option behind Collins and Cole Aldrich. That changed when he started rotating between games of 14 points and four.
“As a freshman you’re going to have up and down games,” Collins said. “He’s on a roller coaster and right now he’s just shooting back up.”
It was the Collins show in the final minutes, but Taylor actually made Kansas’ last field goal, a layup over 6-foot-7 forward Taylor Griffin, to put the Jayhawks up 80-71.
“He picked a good night to make shots,” Self said.
Taylor was an efficient 8-of-13 from the floor and also dished out three assists.
He had a big smile on his face for most of the game. Collins said he’d seen Taylor that happy on the court, but it had never translated into the kind of point production he had Monday night.
Long after the game, Taylor was still amazed when he reflected on the circumstances that put Warren at Oklahoma and himself atop the Big 12 standings.
“I wanted to come where I was going to be able to play,” Taylor said. “I was kind of waiting on him to see what he was going to do. It just happened like this.
“Coach Self lucked out with me I guess.”
— — Edited by Melissa Johnson
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