No looking back
Guard Isaiah Taylor isn’t having second thoughts about leaving Texas early even though he may not be drafted by any NBA team.
AUSTIN — Isaiah Taylor didn’t need to watch.
Not on that night three months ago, when his knees began to buckle with the ball still in the air. Not two weeks later, during the “One Shining Moment” montage in which he had a starring role. And certainly not now, as he flies back and forth across the country from one NBA gym to another, and people still bring it up.
“I knew it was going in as soon as it left his hand,” Taylor said of the half-court heave by Northern Iowa’s Paul Jesperson that ended Texas’ season in the NCAA Tournament. “It was devastating.”
And even though he had a year of college eligibility remaining, Taylor said he understood in that moment – when cameras caught him on his knees, with his head down and his arms splayed across the floor –his UT career was over.
The 6-2, 180-pound point guard from Hayward, Calif., nearly turned pro the year before, after his sophomore season. But the arrival of coach Shaka Smart convinced him to stay one more season with the Longhorns.
He said this week he’s glad he did, and credited Smart with giving him “nothing but support.” And yet even though he’s not projected to be a surefire selection in this month’s NBA draft, he never seriously considered returning for his senior season.
“At the end of the year, I knew right away what I was doing,” Taylor said. “There was no doubt.”
For Taylor, the lightly recruited kid who flew to Texas for spring break as a high school sophomore and wound up staying to attend the Village School in Houston, a lack of pre-draft hype isn’t discouraging.
Less than a year before he arrived at UT, his best scholarship offer was from Lehigh. No major recruiting service listed him among the nation’s top 300 prospects. And somehow, he wound up starting right away for the Longhorns as a freshman, and earned first-team all-Big 12 honors as a junior, leading the team in scoring (15.0 points per game) and assists (5.0 per game).
So when he failed to receive an invitation to the NBA’s pre-draft scouting combine, it didn’t faze him. He said he’s already traveled to workouts for the Pistons, Celtics and Rockets, among other teams, and he’s been training with other draft hopefuls under former NBA coach John Lucas in Houston.
Known mainly for his quickness and driving ability, Taylor said he’d like to be a “pass-first” point guard in the NBA, but his top spring priority has been to improve his jump shot.
“A bunch of teams are saying I’m shooting a lot better than they expected,” Taylor said.
And if he doesn’t hear his name called at the draft June 23? Taylor said he’ll deal with that problem if and when it comes, but he didn’t rule out the possibilities of catching on as an undrafted free agent, playing in the developmental league or going overseas.
Regardless of what happens, though, Taylor said he won’t have any regrets about taking the risk of leaving school early.
“To me, it was just personally what I knew I could do,” Taylor said. “This is what I’ve been working for all along.”