Justin Taylor grew up watching the McDonald’s All-American Game, which features the top high school basketball players in the country.
The St. Anne’s-Belfield junior will get an opportunity to test his skills against the best players in the country later this month. Taylor was invited to participate in the Coach Wootten’s Top 150 Camp, a precursor to the McDonald’s All-American Games camp.
The camp, which features the top 150 seniors and top 50 junior prospects in the nation, takes place Oct. 24-25 at Fieldhouse USA in Mansfield, Texas. The camp is named after legendary DeMatha Catholic High School coach Morgan Wootten, the winningest high school coach in American history.
“It’s not the huge camp that I hope to get invited to my senior year, [but] it was definitely an honor being invited to that,” Taylor said. “I’m definitely humbled and thankful that I was invited and being recognized as one of those top guys and I’ll try to go there and compete.”
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The 6-foot-6 junior guard/forward is ranked the No. 49 prospect nationally in the Class of 2022 by 247 Sports and is considered one of the top high school players in the state. As a sophomore, he averaged 15.4 points, 5.3 rebounds, 2.8 assists a game to lead STAB to a share of the Virginia Prep League title and a trip to the VISAA Division I state quarterfinals.
This isn’t the first high-profile camp Taylor has been invited to.
Last April, he was selected to participate in the USA Basketball Junior National minicamp as one of the top 75 players in the country. Unfortunately, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the event was canceled.
“I was definitely looking forward to that. I thought it was going to be a lot of fun, playing against some of the best competition in the nation,” Taylor said. “Hopefully next year we’ll have the same opportunity, but just trying to stay focused for next year.”
This summer, Taylor was invited to play for Team Takeover, an AAU team out of Washington D.C., and compete in the Nike EYBL circuit. That opportunity also was nixed because of the pandemic.
“This summer has been tough, not being able to have the regular season I was hoping for, especially for me playing my first year in the EYBL,” Taylor said. “We were still able to play a little bit because we hosted our own summer series and we had practice. I just tried to be focused and stay confident.”
The pandemic hasn’t had a negative impact on Taylor’s status on the recruiting trail. The STAB product was a hot commodity when the recruiting period opened up. Since June 15, he has received offers from more than 10 programs, including Indiana, Virginia Tech, Syracuse, Butler, N.C. State, Georgetown, Richmond, Bryant, St. Joseph’s and Maryland.
“I got five offers on the first day,” Taylor said. “That was super exciting. It’s definitely fun talking to all of them and getting that notice. It’s tough because all the schools have their different pitches and how I can impact their program, but it’s still pretty early on [in the process] so I’m just taking it day by day.”
Taylor made good use of his time this summer, spending most of his free time in the gym and weight room to help refine his game.
“This summer was huge because I was able to get in the gym five times a week and then lifted two or three times a week,” Taylor said. “It was huge just staying in the weight room, becoming more athletic and stronger and just working on all my weakness in the game, just trying to tighten everything up and just be more of an impact [player] this year.”
This past weekend, he participated in the Commonwealth Basketball Grassroots fall series in Richmond. He was part of a team that included many of his STAB teammates, including John St. Germain, Carter Lang, Chance Mallory and Eli Bennett. Taylor held his own against some of the tournament’s top talents, including Varina swingman Alphonso Billups.
“It’s huge now that we’re being able to play, even though we weren’t able to play this summer,” Taylor said. “It was huge to be able to work out every single day with them on the court. Even though we weren’t able to play, that was disappointing, but I think it was huge just being able to get better.”
The STAB product believes he’s expanded his skill set and is far from a one-dimensional player.
“I think I was just trying to get out of the narrative of just being a shooter,” Taylor said. “That’s something I worked a lot on, finishing through contact, different finishes at the rim, and just tightening up things, like my pull-up [jumper], shooting off the move. I worked on my defense a lot this year in the weight room, in terms of lateral quickness . I would say finishing and defense were two components that I worked on this year.”
Taylor has high goals for this coming winter, both individually and with his high school teammates. One of the goals is to improve his recruiting stock and prove to the analysts that he’s a top 25 player in the Class of 2022. The other is to add some more hardware to the trophy case at STAB.
He is excited about the future with this team.
“Just getting out there and playing with them,” Taylor said. “This is a step in the right direction, but I’m just excited to play any type of high school season really because we only have two years left. I’m excited to prove to everyone how I’ve worked on my game this summer and hopefully win a state championship. We’ve got two years to do it, so that’s kind of like a big goal of mine.”