New Marquette coach Buzz Williams will meet Friday with St. Anthony senior guard Tyshawn Taylor and legendary coach Bob Hurley in Jersey City in what essentially amounts to Williams' first effort in re-recruiting Taylor in the wake of Tom Crean's departure to Indiana..
I will have a long piece in Friday's Herald News about the coaching carousel in college hoops and its impact on several local athletes. Today I interviewed Taylor about his situation and here are his comments, some of which will appear in tomorrow's story.
Q: Tyshawn, What will you ask Coach Williams during the meeting?
A: I want to ask him about his coaching style because I love how Coach Crean coaches. I don't want to go to Marquette and everything gets changed around.
Q: What did you like about Coach Crean's style?
A: How he gave the guards freedom and how he went about talking to his players. He's a high energy guy, which I like.
Q: What kind of relationship do you have with Coach Williams?
A: He recruited me. I had a better relationship with him than with Coach Crean.
Q: Have you spoken with Coach Crean since he departed for Indiana?
A: I talked to him one time and he told me to wait to see who gets the coaching job at Marquette.
Q: What else did he say?
A: Crean apologized. He explained to me why he left. i just would have wanted to know ahead of time but he didn't even know what he was going to do. He has to do what's best for him and I have to do what's best for me.
Q: Has this whole process been confusing for you?
A: It's definitely been confusing. It just threw me off, the whole thing. It's hard to deal with at first. But Coach Hurley told me to calm down and relax.
Q: What are you concerned about at Marquette going forward?
A: I want to know how many minutes I would play this year. They have a lot of guards. I know three of them are going to be seniors, Jerel McNeal, Wesley Matthew, and Dominic James. David Cubilllan and Maurice Acker are on the bench. That's five guards. Nick Williams asked for his released before we knew who the coach was going to be. That's six guards not including me.
Q: But didn't you know all that before you committed?
A: I want to know how my playing time will come in. Now that I had more time to think about it, I'm not sure what (Williams) is going to do. I want to undertand what my mintues are going to be.
Q: What do you think about the rule prohibiting kids from going to one Big East school after they committed to another?
A: I haven''t talked to any other Big East schhools so it's not that bad to me. It doesn't effect me because I'm not getting recruited by any other Big East schools.
Q: What schools are recruiting you?
A: Coach Hurley gave me a list of schools and I haven't really been able to talk to any of the coaches.
He gave me a long list of schools -- Virginia Tech, Georgia Tech, Texas, Kansas, Florida, Ohio State, Penn State, Michigan, St. Joe's and Seton Hall. (Note: Seton Hall is he lone Big East school in this group.)
Q: When will you make your decision?
A: I probably won't make a decision until Monday. I will talk to Coach Hurley on Monday afternoon.
Zag--
Great work on getting the Taylor Q&A before Marquette's coach comes into town.
The comments over the last week have certainly been up and down. Considering Taylor said he had a better relationship with Williams then Crean it seems all the more strange to read his, and Coach Hurley's, comments from late last week.
Sounds like they are giving Williams the first at-bat and if he can't connect then come Monday, Taylor will start looking at other schools.
Posted by: George Weah | April 10, 2008 at 05:43 PM
Thanks, George. And yes that about sums it up. Will be interesting to see what they say tomorrow.
Posted by: Adam Zagoria | April 10, 2008 at 07:23 PM
What a joke this Big East rule is prohibiting a commit from changing to another BE school! I agree with the previous poster that bemoaned this antiquated and foolish rule. This conference is so big and geographically spread-out, how on earth can BE Commissioner Tranghese justify prohibiting a NY/NJ local kid from switching to a Syracuse, RU, SHU, SJU, 'Nova, etc., etc. when the coach from Timbuktu, Wisconsin leaves?! Just ridiculous.
Posted by: 1oldshu | April 10, 2008 at 08:12 PM
Marquette granted releases to two guards tonight - Nick Williams and Scott Christopherson (freshman SG).
Interesting timing, eh
Posted by: NYWarrior | April 10, 2008 at 09:20 PM
1oldshu -- I agree that the rule is odd, but I hardly think of Milwaukee as "Timbuktu." :)
Posted by: Nathan | April 11, 2008 at 01:28 PM