Celeste Taylor did everything she could Duke. Taylor, the 2023 ACC Defensive Player of the Year, was a big reason Duke reached its first NCAA Tournament since 2018. From the moment she arrived in 2021, she was the player coach Kara Lawson leaned on to help establish the culture she wanted.
Among finding her voice as a leader, helping younger players with film and X’s and O’s, there wasn’t much Taylor didn’t have a hand at Duke. When the Blue Devils confronted Colorado in the second round of the NCAA tournament, her impact on the court was also on full display. She finished with eight points, 10 rebounds, 10 steals and eight assists, but Duke lost 61-53 in overtime. She wishes she had shot better than 21 percent in the loss, but it was hard to watch that game and see more of what Taylor can do. Still, the loss broke her.
In tears, Taylor found her biggest fans, her parents Alex and Selene Navarro, after the game. That moment her father took back to Taylor’s eighth grade year when her grassroots team lost a game and she cried on the car ride home. It was the same scenario; Taylor did everything on the floor but wanted to do more.
“I’m like, ‘Celeste, what are you crying about?’ She said, ‘We lost the game and I couldn’t score,’ Navarro said. “She was young and I just told her those offensive rebounds you got added six more points, those stops you got turned into points.”
After they got home, Navarro received a call from Taylor’s grassroots coach who said a college coach wanted to talk to him about Taylor. Despite the loss, the coach loved Taylor’s game for the exact reasons Navarro told his daughter: She impacts the game in every facet.
It’s the same now. Taylor is a do-it-all player for no. 12 Ohio state, where she transferred from Duke after last season. She averages 7.6 points per game, fourth on the Buckeyes. She also has a career-high and team-best 3.8 assists per game, a team-high five blocks and is second on the Buckeyes with 23 steals. But the player Ohio State fans are getting to know better wouldn’t be who she is without moments like the Colorado loss or everything that has come before.
GO DEEPER
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It’s in her lowest moments, when the tears flow after a tough loss or when injuries have kept her out of games, that have shaped Taylor’s perspective. She’s still the fiercely competitive player who was ranked No. 40 as a high school recruit and is looking to wrap up her final college season on top of that. But as she enters her fifth year, she is also mature enough to understand that she is more than just a basketball player. “I want to cultivate a legacy that I can leave behind as far as people seeing the person that I am,” Taylor said. “It’s about making the world a better place.”
When the NCAA tournament ended for Duke, Taylor’s college career would be over. This was the plan she and her family devised. She was ready to go to the WNBA. They even had an agent chosen.
But shortly after the Colorado loss last season, Taylor had a conversation with her family. Navarro said he thinks Taylor could use another year of college; she was able to earn a master’s degree after majoring in psychology at Duke and then pursue a professional career. Taylor disagreed, but promised she would think about it in the coming days. The next morning, Taylor called her parents and said she was in. She’s going back to Duke.
However, the comeback was short-lived.
Relationships are very important to Taylor, who has three siblings and talks to her mother several times a day. Because the family felt a close bond with Ohio State coach Kevin McGuff, Taylor strongly considered the Buckeyes out of high school. But she ended up choosing Texas because of another strong relationship with Karon Aston.
At Duke, the family loved Lawson, but their closest relationship was with assistant coach Winston Gandy. Over her two years at Duke, Taylor built a close relationship with Gandy. Any time she needed to exercise, discuss film or talk, Gandy was the one she turned to. He even helped Navarro move Taylor into her new apartment after her second season.
But days after Taylor announced she was staying at Duke, Navarro got a call from Gandy. “I have bad news for you,” Gandy said. Navarro thought Duke might have lost a recruit or something, but Gandy said he accepted an assistant coaching position at South Carolina under coach Dawn Staley. Navarro was selfishly disappointed, but he understood that work could not be abandoned.
Taylor found out shortly after Navarro and knew a change had to be made. “Celeste said, ‘OK, I have to go to the portal. I can’t gamble on who Kara may or may not bring in my last year,” Navarro said. Things moved quickly for Taylor after that.
The experience of transferring from Texas to Duke gave her insight into the transfer process. But this time was different. She had one year left. She couldn’t go somewhere and help break into a new culture again; she wanted it to be a program that was already set up and she could come in to help elevate it. The family focused on coaches and programs where they had already developed relationships. McGuff enters.
It was the third time he recruited Taylor. It was the right time for Taylor.
Fresh off an Elite Eight run, Ohio State needed a dynamic and experienced guard following the departure of Taylor Mikesell, which was drafted by the Indiana Fever. Taylor wanted to play somewhere where she would fit in, improve her game and work with a coaching staff that would push her. It was a perfect match.
As a do-it-all player, Taylor averages 7.6 points per game and has a team-best 38 assists. (Brian Rothmuller/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Taylor played high school varsity as a seventh grader and averaged 10 points per game. But Navarro had a message for her: She wasn’t as good as she thought she was.
“These girls are just so bad,” he said. “I told her we have to get you out of here because you’re not going to get better and you’re going to get a false sense of how good you can be.”
She left public school and went to Long Island Lutheran for eighth grade. Navarro constantly communicated to his daughter that her coach would have to put her on the court by committing her to defense. One of the best parts of Taylor’s game has become her high basketball IQ, but mixed with her relentlessness on the court. That made her perfect for Ohio State and McGuff.
Ohio State’s tournament run last season came on the strength of its elite defense. The Buckeyes held opponents to 68 points per game, which wasn’t near the top in the nation, but that’s because Ohio State has been speeding teams up with its pressure.
So when Taylor entered the portal, it was a no-brainer for McGuff to reach out. And it has worked out so far this season. Ohio State is giving up just 60 points per game, but Taylor also helps in the half-court defense, a facet of the game that Ohio State struggled with last season. Teams are shooting just 38 percent from the field against the Buckeyes, an improvement from 43 percent a year ago.
For Taylor, though, the fitness is more than just defense. Ohio State’s plethora of scoring options, such as Jacy Sheldon and Coty McMahon, allowed Taylor to show off more of her acting skills as well. At Duke, Taylor was forced to do a lot on offense and averaged over 10 shot attempts per game. At Ohio State, she can play with less attention on her.
Celeste Taylor got her shot a few weeks ago and she hasn’t looked back
Massive bucket late pic.twitter.com/FwuVFUzWvr
— Mark Schindler (@MG_Schindler) December 10, 2023
“Here, how can you focus on one player when everyone is a proven scorer?” Taylor said. “So it’s being able to hit open shots, and I think personally, and that’s new to my offensive game, is the assist department. I want to show that I can pass the ball. I worked on this a lot at Duke. I have always been ahead of things to see things before they happen.”
Although her shooting percentage is down to 34 percent, she is making an impact on both sides of the ball.
After the loss to Colorado, Taylor struggled to think about anything other than her college career being over. But her parents stressed that she had nothing to be disappointed about. Between her two years at Texas and the impact she made at Duke, she left a strong legacy. Navarro told Taylor, “The culture has been changed forever.” This would have been difficult for Taylor to accept years ago.
“Not to say I wasn’t patient, but when you’re young, it’s instant gratification,” Taylor said. “Everybody feels that they deserve it and deserve it.”
That’s not who Taylor is anymore. As she sat in the Ohio State practice gym earlier this season and talked about her journey, she said it’s hard to think about. From the excitement of arriving at Texas to play for Aston to her coach being fired, the COVID-19 years, injuries at Duke and even the success. Taylor says she values these experiences and has grown from them.
“My parents always tell me about things when I was younger, and I’m like I don’t want to hear about the past or think about it,” Taylor said. “Did I plan to go to Texas and say, ‘Oh, I’m going to transfer twice after that? No. It was never in my head. … It is crucial to be able to sit back and think. If you don’t sit back and reflect, how can you grow as a person? As a college athlete, it’s hard because you feel like I have to go and go and go, and by the time you look back you’re a senior. You can only grow as a person if you sit back and have that perspective.”
Navarro also saw a change in Taylor. The smile she had when she left to go to Texas as a freshman dimmed over time as she dealt with COVID-19 and was thousands of miles from home. “I’ll tell my wife she doesn’t look like the same kid who left for Texas,” Navarro said. “The happiness, the smile, I don’t see it.”
When they visited Ohio State, he saw it again. For the first time in years, he saw his daughter with the same joy as she had growing up on the court.
“I think she’s at peace with what she did,” Navarro said. “I think she connects with McGuff on a level that allows her to be herself. She is so easy going and lets go of trying to impress people or playing to get set up. I think she’s just playing for herself and that’s what got her where she was to begin with. She lives in the moment.”
High expectations for Ohio State this season are motivation for Taylor. “People expect it and I’m always going to work my hardest to make it happen,” Taylor said. “That’s what broke me last year after not beating Colorado. It was never about other people saying we should win that game because we were the higher seed. It was me. I feel like I could have done more, but I did almost everything I could have done. I gave my all. That’s all I expect from myself.”
Taylor helped lead Ohio State to a 9-1 record heading into Monday’s top-15 matchup against second-ranked UCLA. Win or lose, Taylor is at peace with herself because she has one goal. “To be happy,” she said. “It’s about being happy in every moment.”
The rest can come later.
(Top photo of Celeste Taylor: Jason Mowry / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
