Taylor originally chose Boston College this summer but said (on the link we posted here) those plans didn’t work out. Xavier came into the picture soon afterward, and he gave his commitment after visiting the school this weekend and talking things over with his family.

He said he chose XU over Cincinnati, Miami U. and Arizona State.

“I picked Xavier for various reasons,” Taylor said. “I like the school a lot. It’s the kind of campus I’d been looking for, not too small and not too big. The coaches communicate very well and they had a good presentation to me. Players listen to them. And Xavier is a team that always wins.”

Maybe we can finally put an end to this odd chapter both in this young man’s life and in Monmouth University men’s basketball history. JerseySmarts.com wishes Taylor luck at Xavier University. And we’re really looking forward to getting back in the MAC Center for the coming basketball season!

Former Monmouth forward Travis Taylor is now back on the market and won’t attend Boston College.

I’m hearing BC wasn’t aware that Taylor had been suspended for seven games last season for “violating team rules.” Really? How do you not know that?

Anyway, the 6-foot-7 Taylor, a Union, N.J. native, will visit Xavier Tuesday and is also considering Miami, Cincinnati and Arizona State.

“Travis and his family want to utilize the three remaining official visits he has left before he makes a decision,” a source with knowledge said. “Considering we’re about to enter the second live period this could drag into August.”

Taylor averaged 17.8 points and 7.6 rebounds last season.

Boston College Says No

Second, let me echo what the Asbury Park Press’ Tony Graham wrote above – how did Boston College NOT know that Taylor was suspended for seven games in the middle of last season?! Really? They didn’t know that? Who does the recruiting up there? Were they asleep at the wheel? I don’t know the details of the situation, but one could make a strong argument that the primary reason why Taylor is leaving Monmouth is because of that suspension. So did the recruiter at Boston College say, “Why are leaving Monmouth?” and accept a generic answer like, “I’m trying to raise my profile?”

I mean come on!

And finally, I wanted to repost a comment that someone named redskin22 posted on The Hawks Nest blog:

This is very sad- Ego’s is what this move is all about. The damage that his mom and mentor have done to this kid is unbelievable.

Has far as taking him back to MU – No Way!!!! He, his mom and his mentor have burn that bridge. This is what happens when people who think they know college basketball get a hold of a kid. they screw it up almost always.

Look, I don’t know what the core reason was for Taylor wanting to leave Monmouth. There were rumors that Dave Calloway’s coaching style was too aggressive for most of the players and that he treated them like kids rather than young adults. Who knows if that is true other than the players? The comment above suggests that Taylor’s Mom wanted him out of the program – who has anyway of knowing if that is true besides Mrs. Taylor and her son? Was it Taylor’s “mentor” that brought the Mom and son delusions of grandeur? No one can know for sure.

What we do know at this point is this: Taylor was suspended for seven games in the middle of the season for violating team rules. The rumors suggest that it had something to do with smoking some weed, which was a very poor decision on Taylor’s behalf as it negatively impacted his teammates during the season, the health of his team after the season ended, and his own character in the college basketball world (as the Boston College story above represents). What we can all, I think, safely speculate at this point is that this was a tremendously bad decision on Taylor’s part and that it probably wasn’t worth the few hours of a high that he may have received from smoking up.

Then again, are we now expecting college kids to consistently act with the type of responsibility that we expect from ourselves as adults? I sure hope not because the vast majority of college kids don’t take into account what impact their actions have on tomorrow, let alone what impact those actions will have on their character a few months afterward!

Former Monmouth forward Travis Taylor has opted to transfer to Boston College and play for former Cornell coach Steve Donahue. Taylor chose the Eagles over Seton Hall and Temple.

Taylor, a 6-foot-7 sophomore from Union, N.J., averaged 17.8 points and 7.6 rebounds last season

“This was an extremely tough choice for Travis and multiple factors played into his decision making process,” said Bill Diamond, the Taylor family adviser. “It was well thought out and he and his family asked all of the right questions. Travis loved the campus, the academic reputation and the coaching staff. He has an opportunity to earn immediate playing time in one of the best conferences in the country. Steve Donahue is a proven coach and will do a tremendous job in Travis’s maturation process on and off the court.”

Monmouth gave Taylor a conditional release, allowing him to move to schools not on the team’s 2010-11 schedule. Seton Hall is not on the schedule, while Rutgers is.

Taylor has not answered several calls to his cell phone.

He was suspended for seven games last season for “violating team rules” and the team went 2-5 during that span.

From my perspective, I’m really unsure about this move in terms of being a benefit for Taylor. In the NEC he stood out as clearly the best player on his team, but also as one of the best players in the league. Moving up north and into the Atlantic Coast Conference is a whole new world – I’m not sure how Taylor will be able to perform up there, but I guess all that anybody can do is wait and see, right?

Justin Sofman is the Latest to Leave
By the way, none of the Hawks pictured are returning

Sofman said he can no longer “take the culture of it, the negativity, the yelling and screaming (of the coaches) if my heart is not in the game.”

“Maybe if I felt different about the game of basketball I would buy into everything,” Sofman said.

“I’m 21 years old. I’m not going to tell him (Calloway) how to do his job. I’m a psychology major. I’m not a coaching major.”

“I’m not going to get into how to motivate players and how to coach because I don’t know.”

“Just because I disagree with something doesn’t mean anything. What I do know is I didn’t feel motivated personally.”

“I didn’t agree with a lot of things. But how are you going to agree when you get screamed at all day, every day.”

“I wasn’t looking forward to next year without Travis, sort of,” Sofman said. “(Without Travis) it made it easier maybe (to leave). I think it’s better for the team and myself I part ways.”

Sofman said Calloway is not out of the ordinary in how he handles players from any of his other coaches dating back to high school.

“I’ve had my share of negative screamers,” Sofman said. “I’ve had the worst ones on purpose to get me ready for the next level.”

“The only difference was I was naive then and wasn’t as adult as I am now. The fact is I could take it back then and now it drives me nuts.”

“You can’t talk to an adult like that and expect to get results.”

Sofman said he liked Calloway as a person. “We had a nice conversation today (Tuesday),” Sofman said. “It’s just a conflict of working for him.”

I have mixed feelings on Sofman leaving the team because I think that he is a good player and a great asset to the team on many fronts. However, as a former high school athlete (and a pretty damn good one, too), I absolutely understand that feeling of completely losing interest in a sport in which you were once a fierce competitor.

Story Time! When I was in high school I was a pretty good wrestler. I wasn’t state championship material by any means, but I was pretty damn good. However, somewhere in the middle of wrestling season during my senior year in high school I began to really not give a damn about the sport any more (which was pretty bad since I was Captain of the team). I definitely continued to compete at a high level, but I didn’t want to win for the good of the team or for my personal advancement; more than anything else I wanted to win matches for personal pride. I’m not sure what caused me to not give a damn any more, but over the years I’ve begun to accept the notions that 1) I saw no professional or semi-professional athletic future for myself and 2) I subconsciously didn’t buy the “hype” that our coaches sold to us on a daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly basis.

From Sofman’s quotes above, it sounds like he was in the same situation. When I read Sofman saying that he can no longer take the “culture of it” and that if he “felt different about the game of basketball [he] would buy into everything,” the very same feelings conjure up in my head that I had during my senior year of high school wrestling. Specifically, it’s the idea that you have to “buy into everything” that really piques my interest. Anyone who has played a competitive sport under a good coach at a competitive high school or college knows that coaches all have their own unique motivation techniques. Some yell, some scream, some run you into the ground, some speak softly and carry a big stick – it’s part of their style as a coach. A good coach will tailor his or her motivation techniques to lead his or her athletes to a bigger picture, larger goal, or greater accomplishment.

It sounds like Sofman didn’t want to deal with Dave Calloway or his coaching staff’s motivation techniques because he no longer saw the bigger picture, wanted to attain a larger goal, or even believed that there was a greater accomplishment.

Again, if this is how Sofman really feels (and we have no reason to doubt him), then I can’t really blame the kid for making this decision. I remember how my wrestling coaches told me that if I wrestled 100 competitive matches (or more) during the off-season that I’d come back better than my competition. So… I did just that. I wrestled over 100 matches during each of my off-seasons. That’s 100+ matches after my Freshman year of wrestling, 100+ matches after my Sophomore year of wrestling, and 100+ matches after my Junior year of wrestling. Was I better than my competition? Ehhh… it’s debatable. There were certain guys that didn’t last 30 seconds wrestling against me and there were other guys that I never beat. At the end of the day and after more than a decade to consider some of these issues, I don’t think that I was any better off because of those 300+ matches that I wrestled in the off-season.

I don’t write this stuff as a bitter ex-athlete. Not at all, actually. In fact, I look back on my days as a high school athlete with very happy and exciting memories! But as Sofman says in his quotes above, I’m an adult now and I see the system that I went through for what it really was – a prolonged motivation technique that, for the vast majority of high school athletes, doesn’t help them truly excel beyond their competition. It seems that Sofman has come to this realization, too. In fact, when I read his quote of, “You can’t talk to an adult like that and expect to get results,” I pretty much know that he’s done with these motivation techniques to push him to a greater accomplishment. And I completely understand.

All of that said, I’d still encourage kids to get involved with competitive sports while in school. Competition builds a certain character and, while these athletes are young teenagers, the camaraderie of a team helps them to develop the necessary social skills that they’ll need in many aspects of their adult lives. However, when all is said and done I appreciate where Sofman is coming from because I appreciate that sometimes you have to know when to say when.

“Travis’ mother contacted me by phone and declared that they have decided that her son needed to move on to further enhance his chances of playing in the NBA,” [Dave] Calloway said.

“We are truly disappointed in Travis’ decision to leave Monmouth,” said Calloway. “His teammates stood by him this past season and were counting on him this upcoming year. “We wish Travis the best and truly hope he finds what he is looking for.”

Taylor is Leaving the MAC Center Next Year

Another one of the comments said that Taylor isn’t even close to being an NBA-caliber player and while most people will probably agree with that statement, I think that if the kid sees an opportunity to reach a higher level by moving somewhere else, then you can’t denigrate his choice. However, you have to start wondering just what the heck is going on over at Monmouth University in their men’s basketball program. Not only is Travis Taylor leaving the team (and the school), but both Dutch Gaitley and George Barbour have quit the team. Rumors suggest that these two have the equivalent of irreconcilable differences with Coach Dave Calloway. Lord only knows what type of stuff (drama?) is going on behind the scenes with the men’s basketball team…

No matter what happens, though, I’ll be back in my seats next season to enjoy some basketball at the MAC Center. I just didn’t think that I’d be watching a completely different team play when only one of this past season’s players (Whitney Coleman) was graduating!

Shadow's Entrance Video

However, even though the final score wasn’t close that doesn’t mean the Hawks stood still and took a beating. Not at all, actually. Instead, they came out in the second half and played with the type of desire and energy that you would expect of a championship team. Unfortunately, the Hawks just couldn’t get the ball in the basket and without doing that, you can’t win the game (there’s my John Madden moment for the day). The worst showing came in the three pointer stats where the Hawks were only 16 percent last night. Not good. I don’t have The Mount’s three pointer stats, but they were slamming them left and right in the very beginning of the game and towards the end of the game. Overall, the Hawks only shot 29 percent. Watching the team miss so many shots made the first half drag on; it’s not fun to watch so many missed opportunities for the home team. Hawks Captain Whitney Coleman commented on the missed shots during the post-game press conference (courtesy of the Asbury Park Press):

“Losing is miserable,” said Monmouth fifth-year senior Whitney Coleman. “We need to make shots.”

Coleman’s right – if Monmouth could sink a few more of the shots that they are taking each game, they’d be beating teams like FDU and The Mount. It was encouraging, though, to see the Hawks not give up after being down by double digits at the half. That shows that there is a lot of heart and determination on this Hawks team.

The Asbury Park Press has some great articles about last night’s game where you can get all of the notes, statistics, and quotes from the players and coaches. I’d suggest checking out Tony Graham’s column or Steve Edelson’s column. Mr. Edelson, in particular, focuses on how the team has been hurt by not having Travis Taylor playing for the last seven games. Lucky for Hawks fans – Taylor is back starting Saturday night against Wagoner. The Hawks have also had a great deal of difficulty penetrating their opponents’ defenses. Hopefully, with Taylor returning they can find more success in that area, too.

In the coming days (possibly tomorrow), I’ll be posting some random thoughts about my visits to the MAC Center to watch Monmouth basketball this season. Particularly, I have some comments on The Varsity Club at the MAC. Until then, though, below are 30+ pictures from last night’s game. Enjoy!

Before I go any further, though, I have to make a comment about the officiating in this game. And let me preface this comment by saying that I’m just a fan – not a sportswriter wannabe or someone who thinks that because he watches basketball he is an expert on the sport. I’m not. I’m just a fan who enjoys watching his team win. If you’re looking for an excellent sportswriter’s comments on this game then you want to check out Tony Graham at the Asbury Park Press’ The Hawks Nest blog.

Anyway, here’s my comment on the officiating. I know it’s cliche for fans of the losing team to point towards anything to justify why the team didn’t play as well as they could have or why they lost in the end. And it’s cliche for fans to point towards the officiating as a cause of the team losing. But the referees last night were so incredibly bad and so incredibly off with their calls that you had to believe they were playing a joke or something. I played highly competitive sports in high school and while it’s a whole different world from college, I understand that these student athletes are putting in a lot of time and effort to prepare to play against (and beat) their opponents each week. But how does a coaching staff or a team of student athletes prepare for horrendous officiating? You can’t prepare for that – it’s impossible.

When I got home from the game I checked the DVR of the game (it was on the MSG Network) and there was an interview with the Commissioner of the Northeast Conference who was apparently sitting somewhere near me. I have to imagine that the Commissioner of the NEC was a little disgusted with that type of officiating. She mentioned in her interview that she wants to get the NEC brand out there to other parts of the nation. Well, that’s great, but you want to make sure that the image presented is one of two competitive teams putting out great performances – not one of two competitive teams trying to play around an inept officiating staff.

Moving on, though…

I missed Thursday’s game because I was teaching and it was nice to be back in the MAC Center to watch the Hawks play. It was also nice to see the Shadow Nation fans back in the stands supporting their team (the entire student section was pretty much barren during winter break).

As for the game itself, I thought that the Colonials were overly aggressive and somewhat classless for most of the game. Their players were playing pretty dirty away from the action (which is smart since the referees weren’t paying attention). That said, they’re a pretty strong basketball team with some good field goal shooting. The Hawks couldn’t hit a field goal or three pointer all game last night – it was terrible. And the same was true of the Colonials. In Graham’s blog entry on the game, he quotes the RMU Head Coach Mike Rice who joked that he wanted to fire his shooting coach at half-time.

There are almost 30 pictures from different aspects of the game last night (including some of the non-game stuff going on, like me taking pictures of my friends from across the court). Enjoy.