Junior forward Jayla Johnson was putting a few extra shots up at Strahan Arena after practice on Jan. 21 when sophomore guard Kennedy Taylor rushed over from the right sideline.
Taylor pointed to the ceiling, signaling Johnson to toss an alley-oop pass. Johnson sent the lob from the left side of the court. Taylor kept her eyes fixed on the ball as she approached the rim. But as it hurtled back to Earth, Taylor chose not to jump. The ball fell to the hardwood as Johnson looked on in disbelief.
“That was a good pass!” Johnson shouted.
Taylor shook her head in disagreement.
“It was too high,” Taylor said. “I would’ve had to come down with it and shoot it.”
Taylor’s become well-acquainted with what a good pass is. The sophomore guard currently leads the Sun Belt in assists per game with 5.9 and ranks third with a 1.9 assist-to-turnover ratio.
It’s one of the reasons Texas State head coach Zenarae Antoine has such high hopes for the sophomore.
“Kennedy is really geared towards maybe being one of the best point guards that ever played here at Texas State over time,” Antoine said. “If players are able to knock down shots, we’re going to be in good position because Kennedy is really good at creating.”
Taylor always wants to be the best at everything she does. When she was in the third grade, she received the first B on her report card of her life.
It flustered her so much that it ended up being the only B of her life, too. Taylor received straight-A’s throughout high school, graduating as the valedictorian of Dallas Lincoln’s 2018 class.
“And it’s so funny because that particular teacher, we still run into her right now, to this day.” said Kennedy’s dad, Wade Taylor III. “And Kennedy reminds her that the only that the only B she’s ever got in grade school, was back in the third grade. ‘And you gave it to me with an 89.’”
Wade and Kennedy’s mother, Sheila Taylor, met in the late 1980s at West Texas State (now renamed West Texas A&M) in Canyon. Wade played for the Buffaloes’ football team. Sheila was a left-handed small forward on the women’s basketball team.
When Kennedy was born, they knew they wanted to introduce her to sports at an early age. They signed her up to play in a YMCA league in Dallas at just three years old. But, as the only girl to join, she would be forced to play with the boys.
Kennedy didn’t care. She was still one of the tallest players on her team and jumped at center court for the tipoff every game. She didn’t play in a girls’ league until she reached the fourth grade.
“One game, we were kind of late,” Wade said. “The team — this team full of boys, mind you — was standing at the door waiting for this girl to show up. And when they saw her get out the car, you know, it was like, ‘She’s here! Let’s go play!’ It was like, they were not fixing to play without her.”
Wade said playing with boys installed a physicality in Kennedy’s game. It showed when she finally joined a girls’ league where she was one of the few players who didn’t shy away from contact.
It also showed when she would play one-on-one with her younger brother, Wade Taylor IV. Kennedy easily outmuscled her little sibling while she had a size advantage on him. She continued bullying him even as he began to pass her up in height.
“Back in the day, I used to dog him every chance that I got,” Kennedy said. “Just because I knew he was going to grow up to be something pretty special.”
Kennedy said “it’s been a minute” since the two played against each other and didn’t want to say who won the last matchup. But the competitive nature of siblings pushed them to elite levels. Wade IV is currently ranked as the No. 20 point guard in the nation in the class of 2021 by 247 Sports, listed at 6-foot and playing out of Lancaster with offers from Power 5 schools such as Baylor, Florida State, Oklahoma State, SMU, TCU and Texas A&M.
Kennedy blasted her high school competition. She was the state 4A tennis champion her senior year at Lincoln — a sport she only picked up because the team’s head coach was an assistant on the basketball team and needed an extra player. She had been named UIL District 10-4A MVP in three consecutive seasons, averaging 19 points, five assists and four steals.
Antoine found Kennedy’s athletic accomplishments and classroom work ethic impressive. She made an offer to the point guard to join Texas State and Kennedy committed to the Bobcats on Aug. 8, 2017.
“It was just a family environment,” Kennedy said. “I felt like every coach wanted me and they all wanted me for different reasons … And I knew that if I worked hard, I’d have a chance to play early.”
Antoine knew she had a big hole to fill at point guard after Taeler Deer, who was second on the team during the 2017-18 season with 17.3 points per game, graduated from the school. Bailey Holle was likely to step into the starting role, but there wasn’t much depth behind her.
Kennedy became the first freshman Antoine asked to join the team during its Summer I workouts. Antoine usually let’s her first-year players enjoy a little bit of a break after graduating high school and brings them in during the Summer II period.
But with Kennedy, she had to make an exception.
“Making sure that we had someone that could be in the system at the position was going to be really important,” Antoine said. “So we asked her to come in and I’m pretty sure, initially, she was a little bit nervous and unsure. But I’m sure after some conversations with her parents, she decided it was the right thing to do.”
The extra time with the team proved crucial for Kennedy. She played 658 minutes in her first season last year, 200 more than any other freshman on the roster. She started in her first college game on Jan. 26, 2019, racking up 19 points and five assists at Georgia Southern. She went on to start the final 11 games of the season for the Bobcats.
This season, Kennedy’s started in all 23 games she’s played in. She’s been more aggressive getting her own buckets, upping her scoring average from 5.1 points per game to 9.8.
But she knows her strength comes from her floor vision — her ability to set up teammates for good shots and find them when they’re open. She’s become one of the top orchestrators in the Sun Belt and has her eyes set on the maroon and gold’s all-time assists record of 595, set by Shelly Borton in 1990. Kennedy is up to 237 career dimes with five games to go in her sophomore season, including Saturday’s contest at UT Arlington at 5 p.m.
Eleven days after Johnson missed Kennedy on the alley-oop pass, they hosted UT Arlington inside Strahan Arena on Feb. 1. With two minutes remaining on the clock, senior guard Brooke Holle pitched the ball ahead on a press break to Kennedy, who sprinted up the floor with Johnson completely uncovered.
Rather than taking the wide-open layup herself, Kennedy dished it to Johnson for a right-handed layup. Texas State went on to earn its first conference win of the season, 72-55.
Love to see this. Kennedy Taylor dishes it to Jayla Johnson on the fastbreak, rather than taking the layup herself. Taylor's now got 12 assists to go along with 7 points @smdrsports pic.twitter.com/ywxRcXitje
— Drew King (@drewking0222) February 1, 2020
That’s the reason Antoine believes Kennedy can become the best point guard to ever come through the program. Kennedy always wants to be the best at everything she does.
But she wants the same for everyone around her.
“She wants everybody else to eat,” Wade III said. “Because if everybody else is happy, then once I get mine, it’s no big deal.”
