Team Thad’s trio of guards turning heads
Jaykwon Walton looked up from his phone Friday night and flashed a smile when asked about Damion Baugh and Dekeyvan Tandy, his new teammates this offseason.
“They two fast-paced guards and they keep me motivated to play hard,” Walton said. “We got this bond where I think we got the best trio in the country.”
A year after turning heads on the Under Armour Association with recent Memphis signee Tyler Harris, Mem-
phis-based AAU program Team Thad is once again running through the competition because of this backcourt full of Division I prospects.
All three 2019 recruits are shining this weekend during the Memphis in May Invitational, a grassroots basketball event involving more than 100 teams and nine different age groups at gyms across the Memphis area.
Walton is the name Tigers’ fans should be tracking most closely.
He’s a four-star recruit who said Friday that he picked up a scholarship offer from Memphis in the past two weeks. It was one of many schools to join the fray after he wowed college coaches during last month’s spring evaluation period.
But a recent conversation with Tigers coach Penny Hardaway left Walton, a 6-foot-6 guard from Montgomery, Alabama, more intrigued despite all the attention he’s receiving elsewhere at the moment.
“He was telling me about my weaknesses and strengths. He said to me what I need to work on and that I can be a pro one day,” Walton said of Hardaway. “He was like I have this off and on button. Sometimes I can take over a game or sometimes I just lay back and let my teammates go. He hit it right on the head.”
Walton’s rise is only one facet of Team Thad’s surge through the grassroots basketball season.
Baugh has seen his stock soar since deciding to transfer from Cane Ridge High School outside Nashville to Tennessee Prep in Memphis in January. After entering last month without a Division I scholarship opportunity, Baugh said Friday that SMU, Houston, Tulsa, UAB, South Alabama and Wyoming have all offered scholarships in recent weeks.
Team Thad coach and program director Norton Hurd added that major schools such as Arkansas, Alabama, Auburn and Georgia also are showing serious interest in Baugh.
Baugh credits a 2-inch growth spurt (from 6foot-2 to 6-foot-4) that didn’t take away from his natural point guard tendencies, as well as extra work on his shot, for the increase in attention. Playing in Memphis and alongside two other talented players with diverse skill sets also helped.
“It’s been lonely because I miss some of my friends and parents, but I know this is the best move for me,” said Baugh, who lived in a dorm with several teammates on LeMoyne-Owen’s campus while attending Tennessee Prep. “My game now, I get my teammates involved by playing defense, playing hard. That’s really what Memphis kids do.
“It’s amazing because I know (Walton and Tandy) can get to the rim any time they want to, so by me being in the gym working on my jump shot, I know I can sit in the corner and when those guys penetrate they’ll kick it out to me.”
Tandy is considered one of the top recruits from the state of Kentucky in the 2019 class with scholarship offers from schools such as Tennessee, Florida, Cincinnati and Oklahoma.
The 6-foot-2 guard is hoping he also can persuade Kentucky to offer him a scholarship, and he’s using his time with Team Thad to prove he can set the table for teammates, in addition to being a dynamic scorer. Tandy averaged more than 30 points per game as a junior at University Heights Academy in Hopkinsville, Kentucky.
Given who he’s playing alongside these days, that goal seems more attainable than ever.
“As good as they are, we were still viewed as the underdogs coming in,” Hurd said after another win Friday night. “Nobody really knew Baugh, Jaykwon was still under the radar, and then KyKy, people were saying he’s a shooting guard. The way they match together, I like it a lot. We’re not a bigger team, and a lot of people thought us not being as big we might not be successful. But I think we got three, four guards that can compete with most people when we on.”