Taylor a big reason for Grayslake Central success

By Patricia Babcock McGraw

We tell our children to “Dream Big.”

Jordan Taylor has taken that advice quite literally.

He dreams…that he is big. Big enough to dunk.

“I have a million dreams about dunking,” Taylor said. “Usually, it's me coming down the court fast. There's someone under the basket, and I just raise up and dunk on him.”

One problem.

Taylor is still working on grabbing the rim consistently.

It's a tall order for someone who is just 5-foot-7. On a good day.

“When I got my last (annual) checkup, my doctor told me that I had grown one-fourth of an inch,” said Taylor, who boasts a 30-inch vertical leap, but believes he needs to up it to 38 inches if he ever wants to dunk with regularity.

“I was like, ‘Hey, I'm still growing. I'll take it,'” Taylor said. “I just want to keep growing. I want to get bigger.”

Not that Taylor hasn't made it big already.

Just a junior, Taylor is in his second year of starting at point guard for Grayslake Central.

Averaging about 16 points, he's also the Rams' leading scorer.

He scored a game-high 20 points last weekend in a nonconference victory over Glenbrook South to keep Grayslake Central humming.

Heading into Thursday's Fox Valley Conference tilt against Crystal Lake Central, the Rams had won six straight games and seven of their last eight.

“I knew Jordan was scoring for us, but I guess I just didn't realize how much,” Grayslake Central coach Brian Moe said. “I was looking at our stats the other day and Jordan scored 20 in one game and 18 in another and 17 in another, and on and on like that all season. He's been impressive.”

But the fact that Taylor scores a lot of points isn't nearly as impressive as the way he scores them.

Taylor can drain outside shots like many guards.

But his strength is driving to the basket. Fearlessly.

Taylor mixes it up with the bigs as if he were 6-foot-7, not 5-foot-7.

He may get swallowed up inside the paint for a moment, surrounded by all those big bodies, but he often emerges as the ball is falling through the net.

“Jordan just has this knack of getting to the basket,” Moe said. “And he's played so much basketball over the years that he's figured out a way to get his shot off around bigger kids.

“So many times, it's like, ‘No, no, no, no…oh, good shot, Jordan.' You see him taking these shots that you think have no business going in because he's going up against kids who are so much bigger than him, but somehow, he gets them to go in.”

Taylor says it's more attitude than technique.

Always on the small side, Taylor has grown up fighting the fight. For years, he's compensated for his lack of size with an abundance of hunger.

“I've always played with a chip on my shoulder,” Taylor said. “I loved it at the beginning of the season when we were kind of off to a rocky start and no one was believing in us. I love stuff like that. I love trying to prove people wrong. That kind of thing sparks me.

“That's the way I play my game. I like to play like it's me against the world.”

Sometimes, it might feel like that for Taylor when he's challenging players who may be a foot taller than him. But Taylor says that the element of surprise often works in his favor as well.

“When big guys see a guy my height coming at them, their first instinct is, ‘Nah, he's not going to do it.' But with me, I'm looking to take it against the biggest guy on the court. I think a lot of guys are surprised by that.”

Taylor probably caught Zach Miller by surprise. With his defense.

That's another area where the undersized Taylor makes a big statement, and Miller, a point guard from Glenbard East who has signed with Northern Illinois, was one of his biggest victims.

The two went head-to-head at the State Farm Classic in Bloomington over the holidays.

“Jordan pretty much out-played Miller on both ends,” Moe said. “That kid had a hard time guarding Jordan, and he also had a hard time scoring on Jordan.

“Jordan plays great defense. He tortures kids, to the point where they don't even want to bring the ball up on him anymore. Jordan guarded that Miller kid hard like that.”

Taylor scored 20 points in the game against Glenbard East, and Miller managed just 9 points. Clearly, the college coaches who were there to see Miller saw much more than they bargained for.

“My main goal was to shut (Miller) down,” Taylor said. “I love challenges like that. I think I ended up playing pretty good defense on him.

“And if those (college) coaches were watching him get shut down, then they were watching me.”

Taylor would love to play in college. He's dreaming big. He wants to play Division I.

He just hopes that his height doesn't scare everyone off.

“Height really shouldn't be an issue. If you play the game well, and you play the game hard, that's all that should count,” Taylor said. “But I know that's not always how it works. I know that I need to work even harder so that people will say, ‘Hey, this kid really is good. We should check him out.'”