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Just when we thought the only news of the day would be the game against North Carolina Central, we have a roster change by the Marquette men's basketball team. Let's turn it over to the tweets from the athletic department:
TJ Taylor withdraws from MU, leaving #mubb. "In TJ’s best interest, he has withdrawn from school today for personal reasons," Buzz said.
— Marquette Athletics (@muathletics) July 18, 2012
"As a program, we are in complete support of his decision and we wish him all the best in his future as a student-athlete," Buzz said. #mubb
— Marquette Athletics (@muathletics) July 18, 2012
As we discussed when Taylor committed to Marquette over a year ago, he already had a tumultuous college experience before even stepping foot in Wisconsin. For those of you who put value in such things, his Twitter account has not been a steady supply of positivity in the month since Taylor arrived on campus. There were reports that he was sitting out from the Milwaukee Pro-Am this past weekend with a shoulder injury, so it's unclear if that had any impact on his decision.
Hit the jump and we'll look at the roster to see how this impacts Marquette going forward.
The departure of Taylor leaves Marquette with 6 active guards on the roster. Three of them (Junior Cadougan, Vander Blue, and Trent Lockett) are most likely already in the starting lineup. The other three... well, that's where things get interesting. Derrick Wilson is mostly locked into a role as Cadougan's backup, Jamal Ferguson is a freshman and it's impossible to tell at this point what kind of impact he'll have, and given that he's a walk on, Jake Thomas' role on the team is probably more cloudy than Ferguson's. Taylor was going to be able to provide a significant amount of minutes off the bench in a variety of roles, especially if Todd Mayo's suspension continues into the school year.
There is one bit of possible good news to come out of this, though. With Taylor's scholarship now open, Buzz Williams' policy of always recruiting can show results, as this will allow Kendrick Nunn to sign a letter of intent this fall without requiring anyone else to leave the program.