Camryn Taylor Is Transferring

On Monday afternoon, the Marquette women’s basketball roster changed a little bit. Sophomore forward Camryn Taylor announced that she has entered the transfer portal and will be leaving Marquette.

For posterity’s sake, her statement on Twitter reads as follows:

For starters I wanted to thank my coaches and teammates for two great years at Marquette. I hope I’ve had as much as an impact on Marquette Nation as you all had on me. With that being said, I have decided to enter the transfer portal. Looking forward to the next part of my journey.

Taylor started in all 26 of Marquette’s games as a sophomore after appearing in 31 of 32 games as a freshman. The 6’2” forward from Peoria averaged 12.0 points, 6.9 rebounds, and 1.7 assists per game while playing 24.6 minutes per outing this past year. Taylor was a key component in both of Megan Duffy’s first two seasons running the show in Milwaukee, especially when it comes to the Golden Eagles’ commitment to offensive rebounding. HerHoopStats.com has Taylor at #114 in the country in offensive rebounding rate with 13.4% of MU’s misses while she was on the floor landing in her hands for a second chance.

In purely basketball terms, this is a surprising move. Taylor was clearly going to play a big role for the Golden Eagles over her final two seasons of eligibility. This isn’t a case of a player looking for a better opportunity for themselves, because if we’re being honest, there aren’t many opportunities around that are better than “starter and key contributor on an NCAA tournament caliber team.”

With that said, it’s definitely possible that this is something that has been coming for a little while now. Lauren Van Kleunen recently announced that she would return for a COVID bonus season, and Duffy recently accepted a transfer from 6’2” forward Kennedi Myles, who just averaged 8.8 points and 8.4 rebounds this past year for Illinois. With Taylor’s departure at this point, we have to wonder how much of Duffy’s pitch to both Van Kleunen and Myles about playing for MU had to do with knowing that Taylor would be departing.

Here’s what the scholarship chart looks like right now:

With Taylor’s departure, Marquette now has a scholarship open this fall. Or, rather, Marquette has the NCAA allowed ability to add one more scholarship player. Van Kleunen doesn’t have to count towards the scholarship limit because she’s a senior returning for another year. With that said, MU is at 15 women on the roster now, and that’s a lot of people. I already thought that having 16 was going to be a pretty crowded place given that Duffy didn’t go terribly deep in her bench this past year, and 15 isn’t that much different. I wouldn’t expect any new additions, but hey, who knows?

h/t to Sam Arco and the Marquette Tribune for noticing Taylor’s announcement first