RayQuan Taylor grew up playing basketball, primarily on AAU teams, never competing in organized leagues. It wasn’t until his junior year that Taylor began to take the game seriously, stepping onto the hardwood for the first time for his high school in Montgomery, Alabama.
“I picked up my first basketball when I was like 6 years old,” Taylor said. “During high school I played AAU but I never played for my school.
“Once I got into my junior year, my brothers and grandma influenced me to start playing because I was actually good at it. That’s when I started playing for my high school and started getting a feel for it.”
Taylor averaged 17.2 points and 12.8 rebounds per game during his inaugural varsity campaign, while setting a Carver High School program record with 153 shots blocked.
Taylor’s junior season caught the attention of several Division I programs across the nation, including Austin Peay, then coached by Matt Figger, now the UTRGV head coach. Taylor built a connection with Figger during the recruitment process, deciding to join him at UTRGV after taking over the program in March.
“RayQuan is a long, athletic, bouncy kid with a high motor who can play at multiple spots,” Figger said in a news release March 29. “He is able to stretch the floor and is constantly playing with high energy. He has a high ceiling after playing only three years of organized basketball. We’re very excited about his ability to make shots, and on the defensive end, alter shots. Any time we can add a guy who can run and jump, it’s a good thing for our program.”
Taylor has shown glimpses of his potential during his first season with the Vaqueros, averaging 7.3 points and 7.1 rebounds off the bench.
Over the past five games, Figger’s growing trust in his freshman forward has shown, upping his minutes per game from 16.6 to 26.8. Taylor has repaid his coach with increases in his own numbers, averaging 10 points and 10.2 rebounds per contest.
“It makes me happy that he can trust me,” Taylor said. “Knowing that even though I’m a freshman he trusts me to come in and do what I can. He allows me to work on what I can and do what I can to progress throughout the season.
“At first I was a little nervous because it was my first collegiate game. As I started progressing through the other games I started playing as I do.”
Taylor has recorded several career milestones during that span, netting a career-high 16 points against Texas Southern. He also captured his first career double-double, an 11-point, 19-rebound performance against Texas A& M-Corpus Christi.
“I feel like RayQuan Taylor gives us a lot of effort on the glass,” Figger said. “He makes a lot of mistakes still as a freshman, but he came out there and got 19 rebounds, four or five on the offensive side.
“We’ve been putting his face in the fan since day one. He’s overwhelmed at times. He’s learning the physicality of college basketball. He’s learning the level you have to compete in…Everything which requires physicality and he’s doing it at 205 pounds and 6-foot-9…His youth and experience sometimes hinder him but he’s made lots of strides.”
The speed of college basketball has not allowed Taylor to showcase his abilities, Figger said, with the freshman forward capable of more on the offensive end.
“The one thing you haven’t seen out of him is he can really shoot the basketball,” he said. “He just has not gotten the opportunities because the game is so fast. There is going to come a point and time where it’s going to start slowing down for him a little bit. You’ll start seeing him make some threes. You’ll start seeing him handle the ball more. The game is too fast for him right now so he’s not comfortable doing anything offensively.”
With only three years of fully organized basketball under his belt, Taylor knows he has room to grow.
“I need to work on my shot and dribbling,” Taylor said. “I need to get a little stronger and quicker on defense. So, I’m going to start working on those as I go through the season.”
