Meet Taylor Currie
April 14, 2018 | Men's Basketball, Mike Lucas
Skilled post player ‘talented and hungry to get better’
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BY MIKE LUCAS
UWBadgers.com Senior Writer
MADISON, Wis. — Good listener, quick learner.
Taylor Currie could make a compelling argument for the correlation between listening and learning based alone on graduating in two years from a three-year high school in Clarkston, Michigan.
Not just any school, mind you, but one that has won back-to-back Class A state titles.
So, if you're wondering why Currie would want to speed up his timeline — reclassifying from the 2019 recruiting cycle to 2018 thereby skipping his senior year — he completely understands.
"That's a question that everybody loves to ask me," he conceded. "But it provides a really exciting opportunity to get to college and start my development a year earlier."
That's the ambitious path that the 17-year-old Currie has taken to Wisconsin.
"I'm really focusing on getting stronger and preparing myself for making the jump to the next level," said Currie, who's looking forward to joining his new Badger teammates for summer workouts.
"Obviously, they had a tough year in terms of the hand they were dealt. They had so many injuries and were forced to play some of the younger guys. But I think the future is really bright."
"He's both talented and hungry to get better, which are two important qualities we want in the young men in our program" ?? Greg Gard on Taylor Currie
— Wisconsin Basketball (@BadgerMBB) November 8, 2018
Whereas a one-and-done prospect like Marvin Bagley reclassified to expedite his journey to the NBA, with a one-year layover at Duke, Currie did so with the intent of redshirting as a UW freshman.
That's the plan, Currie confirmed, at least for now.
"But, of course, if the team needs something else," he said, "and if Coach (Greg) Gard sees fit for something else to happen, you've got to absolutely do what's in the team's best interests."
Currie, who will turn 18 in August, is still filling out his 6-foot-9 frame.
"At the start of the school year, I was maybe 205 pounds if I was lucky," he said. "I hit the weights really hard for the first three months until our season started. Now I'm between 212 and 215."
Currie can't wait to get under the wing of UW strength coach Erik Helland. As for adding more weight, he said, "That's something that Coach Helland and I haven't discussed in-depth yet."
Nonetheless, between now and November, Currie confidently suggested, "I don't think it would be unreasonable to put on 10 pounds or maybe more.
"That's one thing really big with a redshirt year — being able to come in and really focus on what my needs are going to be to make an impact. Strength and getting my body right is a huge part of that."
Congrats to future Badger, Taylor Currie on winning his second straight Michigan state championship! Winner Back2Back
— Wisconsin Basketball (@BadgerMBB) March 24, 2018
Currie has been working in Clarkston with a trainer who was responsible for getting him an invitation to compete with older, more experienced players in a local pickup league. Grown-up hoops.
"There's just a lot of guys who have played at various levels professionally," he said. "Jordan Crawford, who recently got signed by the New Orleans Pelicans, was out there the first two weeks.
(The 29-year-old Crawford, a Detroit native, played collegiately at Indiana and Xavier. The 6-4 guard has appeared in 280 NBA games with five different teams and averaged 12 points.)
"There's a bunch of guys who were Division 2 All-Americans and played overseas. And then some former Division I players who have bounced in and out of the G-League the past couple of years."
The games are played on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
"And the teams are picked when you get there," said Currie. "I'm the youngest, age-wise. But there's one other high schooler. Obviously, you don't want to be the last pick.
"But, for me, it's just exciting to compete. I know they respect the fact that I come out and rebound and play hard and play defense. A lot of times that would get me touches on offense.
"Growing up, that's two things my dad always preached that would translate to any level that I was playing: how hard you rebound and how hard you defend.
"Even when shots aren't falling, if you do those two things well, your coach is going to want to leave you in the game… you can have an impact in different ways than just scoring."
Currie has modeled his game after Draymond Green, the former Michigan State star, who has been a key contributor on a couple of NBA championship teams with the Golden State Warriors.
"I like Draymond Green a lot just because it goes back to what my dad always told me about impacting the game in different ways," Currie said.
"Draymond brings a lot of heart and soul to his team through rebounding and defense and he's a great leader. I respect him because he's an NBA All-Star and he averages only 10 points. He has learned his role and how to have an impact in a number of different ways."
Good listener, quick learner.
Currie could make a compelling argument for the correlation between listening and learning based alone on his development via mentoring from his father Jason and his high school coach Dan Fife.
Jason Currie, who never played college basketball, has been a driving force behind his son's growth. Pushing him when he needed to be pushed. Giving him space when he needed his space.
They've been workout partners in the gym. Soul mates through thick or thin.
"My dad knows how much I love basketball and how badly I want to succeed," Taylor said. "And that's why he loves it so much. That's what he gets joy out of."
Jason's job with AT&T has entailed moving the family from Fort Wayne, Indiana (where Taylor was raised through the seventh grade) to Columbus, Ohio (two years) to Clarkston.
"The toughest transition for me personally was moving from Ohio to Michigan," said Taylor, who starred as a freshman for Worthington Christian High School (10 miles outside of Columbus).
"Moving somewhere else in high school can be tough sometimes just because kids have grown up together and they've formed friendships.
"And here you come — about a month into your sophomore year — and you're living in a new place and you're trying to meet new people."
In making the jump competitively from a small school to a big one — Worthington Christian's enrollment is 350; Clarkston's is 2,603 — Currie had to adjust to better competition.
Besides having rarely faced anyone over 6-2, he had to work on his conditioning and adapt to more physical play. Taylor started as a sophomore and averaged 9 points, 8 rebounds and 2 blocks.
Clarkston went 27-1 under Fife who had two sons play in the Big Ten; Dugan at Michigan and Dane at Indiana (Dane Fife has been an assistant on Tom Izzo's Michigan State staff since 2011).
"In terms of what Coach Fife wants and what Coach Fife demands," Currie said, "you never take a play off and you never take a practice off. That was a tough adjustment coming in as a sophomore.
"I really started to pick it up midway through last year — what kind of motor you have to play with, where you need to be defensively and how you need to rotate.
"He just coached us really hard. He said, 'I'll never coach effort. If you don't play hard, you're not going to play.' That was something I took to heart and I learned because I wanted to play."
Last June, Currie verbally committed to Michigan with the idea of joining the program in 2018. But there were some staff changes and the Wolverines targeted another prospect.
Rather than wait until the 2019 recruiting cycle, per Michigan's wish, Currie decommitted in September. Last summer, he also took three on-line courses so that he could reclassify to '18.
Wisconsin evaluated him as a sophomore and was aware of his status. After Currie signed with the Badgers last November, UW coach Greg Gard said, "He's both talented and hungry to get better."
Last February, Currie made his recruiting trip to Madison and the Badgers, coincidentally, were playing Michigan at the Kohl Center. He was joined by another prospect, Joe Hedstrom.
Currie is projected as a "big" while Hedstrom is really big; tall, for sure, a 7-foot, 225-pound center from Hopkins (Minnesota) who signed his national letter Wednesday to begin his career at UW as a walk-on.
"I shot him a text a couple of days after I committed introducing myself," Currie said, "and we've been getting to know each other. Getting to meet him at the Michigan game was awesome."
Welcome to the family, fellas ???? Excited to announce that Joe Hedstrom and Tai Strickland are officially #Badgers
— Wisconsin Basketball (@BadgerMBB) April 11, 2018
Currie and Hedstrom are both expected to redshirt.
"That's a big thing for big guys," Currie said of an extra year of development. "There's that time where you have to get used to your body — where you just have to get used to being big."
During Clarkston's playoff run to defending its state championship, Currie averaged a double-double (12 points, 12 rebounds) as a complimentary piece to Foster Loyer, a Michigan State signee.
Loyer had 40 in the title game — an 81-38 rout of Holland West Ottawa — pushing Fife to 703 career wins during his 36 years as a Hall of Fame coach in Michigan.
"The big thing was," Currie said of Fife, "was that he'd coach us like we'd get coached in college. The expectations at Clarkston are somewhat similar to the expectations at Wisconsin."
Currie has been on the losing end of the score only seven times over the last 80 games spanning three high school seasons. He has framed cutouts of Clarkston's two title teams on his bedroom wall.
"Two of the greatest Marches of my life so far," Currie said. "We're hoping for more."
