Sophomore guard Taylor Shade opened a lot of eyes when she scored 26 points on 9-of-13 shooting from the field against rival Florida Atlantic University on Jan. 15, but just not mine.
My eyes have been wide open about the talent Shade holds since the very first time I saw her play over a year ago.
I first saw Shade play in a preseason exhibition game, which FIU won in a landslide. Shade entered the game as a freshman with no prior game experience, but that didn’t intimidate her.
Shade played in 10 games as a freshman — a total of 35 minutes the entire season — but she impacts games in ways that don’t necessarily show up on stat sheets. See, Shade is a fearless player. She doesn’t back down from anyone despite being listed generously at 5-foot-6.
Speed, hustle and grit are all traits that Shade embodies to a tee. I once described her defense to a fellow reporter as “relentless, she basically gets inside the other player’s jersey.” Players like Shade don’t come often. Some players do have more talent, some have more size but few have the heart and desire to win that Shade does.
She wears her emotions on her sleeve. Sometimes it’s good, and sometimes it’s not. On occasion, her body language will let her teammates know that she’s frustrated at them or at a play they didn’t convert, but, she treats herself with the same expectations, too. When she messes up a play, she gets upset at the person wearing the FIU number five.
Shade also gets emotional with those who support her and her squad on the court:
“From the bottom of my heart, thank everyone who came out to show love tonight. I’m so grateful to have supporters like yall,” She wrote on Twitter after her dominant performance against FAU.
Shade is also the only player on the women’s basketball team not named Jerica Coley to lead the team in scoring this year. Shade scored 18 points on opening night against Florida Gulf Coast, otherwise Coley has topped the scoring charts in every other game.
The thing is, Shade has that ability to score. She’s elusive, quick and dazzling with a basketball in her hand, but just needs to let the game come to her. At times, she feels a need to score — maybe to relieve some of the scoring burden off Coley — but that usually ends in a forced shot.
When she’s under control, Shade is efficient. She’s second on the team in scoring as of Jan. 16 with 10.1 points per game, which is a monumental jump from the six total points she scored during her freshman campaign. Shade is also shooting the ball at an exceptional rate, she is shooting 44 percent from the field — leading all scores, including Coley, with at least 50 shot attempts — and leads the team with a 39 percent connection rate from behind the three-point line.
The talent is there, it just took everyone a year later to realize it. Shade, if she continues to improve like she has, will be the player called upon to fill in the massive shoes Coley leaves behind after she graduates this year.
-ruben.palacios@fiusm.com
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