Already accomplished Taylor is right at home
Published on Wed., July 23rd, 2008
Tyshawn Taylor reaches back into his basketball-playing memory bank, searching for an answer.
Asked to name the last time he played on a losing basketball team, the University’s newest point guard prospect is coming up blank.
No season stands out during his elementary school days in Hoboken, N.J. His junior high teams in Clearwater, Fla. were pretty good, too.
He didn’t lose much with the Westchester Hawks, his AAU team in high school. Defeat rarely occurred when he played for St. Anthony High School in New Jersey — perhaps the winningest program in high school basketball history.
He settles on his freshman year in high school, before he moved back to New Jersey. At the time, Taylor was attending Countryside High School in Florida. And even that team finished either 10-9 or 10-8, Taylor said.
“I’ve never played on a losing team in my life,” Taylor said. “I just can’t do it.”
It should seem only natural then that Taylor’s winding recruiting path led him to Kansas. Originally committed to Marquette University, Taylor opted out in April when the coach there left for another job. Taylor then became enamored with the Jayhawks — a team that hasn’t finished with a losing record in 25 years. That’s seven years before Taylor was even born.
“This is a winning tradition,” Taylor said of the University. “I think it is incredible.”
Last year, Taylor’s St. Anthony team finished as state champions in New Jersey at 32-0. The Friars also ended their season as the No. 1-ranked high school basketball team in the nation in both the USA Today and ESPN polls.
The Univeristy, meanwhile, didn’t perform too shabbily, either, going 37-3 and winning its first national championship in 20 years.
That means only Taylor can lay claim to going from the high school national champion to the college national champion.
It sounds like a match made in crimson and blue heaven. But will the lanky, 6-foot-3 guard’s play mesh as seamlessly on the court at the University as his winning background does?
“I know when he gets to college he is going to play because he is hungry, he’s team oriented and he has a lot of intangibles,” said Bob Hurley, Taylor’s high school coach at St. Anthony. “I don’t know if all these other players have those things that he possesses. I think he is going to find his way.”
Taylor brings what he has dubbed an “east coast swagger” to Kansas, displaying a quiet confidence on the court, precision passing skills and nasty blow-by moves on defenders to get to the rim — all qualities that helped St. Anthony to an 86-4 record during Taylor’s three seasons there.
“He’s unique,” Hurley said of Taylor, who averaged 10 points and five assists per game in high school last season. “He’s one of those few guys that can be on both ends of an alley-oop dunk.”
According to KU assistant coach Kurtis Townsend, Taylor has also demonstrated two important intangibles since arriving at the University for summer classes last month: a strong work ethic and a willingness to learn.
Townsend, who isn’t allowed to watch Taylor or the six other KU newcomers until classes begin in the fall, said he had heard only positive reviews about Taylor. He said Taylor had been spending hours in the weight room to bulk up his thin, 170-pound frame.
“He’s a guy getting everyone together trying to play pick up,” Townsend said. “He seems like a natural leader and a guy who wants to get better everyday and will do whatever it takes.”
Fairly or unfairly, the comparisons of Taylor’s game have already begun to match up against two of the Univeristy’s recently departed guards from that national championship team: Russell Robinson and Mario Chalmers. Taylor, who should see plenty of their minutes next season and is two inches taller than both, brings an east coast toughness to Kansas just as Robinson did. And Taylor will wear Chalmers’ old digits next season — No. 15.
“He might have the leadership qualities of Russell,” said Townsend, not wanting to bunch the three guards together. “I don’t know if he quite shoots it as good as Mario, but he knows how to score. I think he’s got some qualities the other guys have, but I think he’s going to be his own player.”
Taylor said the toughest part of moving to the Midwest was leaving his family members behind. Maintaining a winning tradition at the University just as the previous guards did should make him feel right at home.
— Edited by Rustin Dodd
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