Tip of the hat to ACC Fan Blog who penned this entry with an update on former Duke Basketball star, Vince Taylor.
For those that don’t remember Taylor, you need to read this kind of stuff so that your knowledge of the conference expands. For the rest of you, I’d love to hear your thoughts & memories on Taylor.
A standout guard at Duke University, Taylor earned All-Atlantic Coast Conference and honorable mention All-America honors as a senior (1981-82) by averaging 20.3 points per game. During Taylor’s collegiate career, the Blue Devils won the 1979 ACC regular season championship and advanced to the NCAA Tournament twice (1979 and 1980) and National Invitational Tournament once (1981). Taylor, who scored 1,445 career collegiate points, finished his career as one of the top 10 scorers in Duke history. He once held the school record by playing in 120 consecutive games.
Vince Taylor was a great basketball player on some very bad teams during the transition of Duke Basketball from Bill Foster to Coach K. IIRC, Taylor arrived at Duke the year after the Blue Devils played in the 1978 National Championship game and had a standout rookie campaign that immediately created comparisons to the great Gene Banks.
I have often wondered what became of Taylor…so this is interesting to me. The comments from the ACC Fan Blog supports my conclusion that Taylor is more disproportionately forgotten when compared to his talent because Duke was so bad in those years; and because his presence was sandwiched in between Duke’s 1978 crew and the 1986 crew.
I’ve always liked losers. I think it goes back to my elementary school basketball team, which won 1 games in the 2 years I played basketball. When picking teams, I’d rather be on the underdog. I’m sure there is something to be understood about my personality from it, but I’d rather be the best player on a bad team than the 4th option on a good team. So maybe that explains why I was a big Brooke Steppe fan when GaTech first came into the league. And I guess that explains why for one brief period in my life, Duke was my favorite team. After Banks, Dennard, and Gminski were gone, Duke sucked, I was a Duke Fan, and Vince Taylor was THE MAN. I loved this guys game.
Hadn’t heard from him since, although I guess I didn’t look very hard. Anyway, he’s surfaced on Tubby’s Staff.
