Huntington's Sydney Taylor took an unlikely path to the WNBA

There never was a Plan B.

Not for Sydney Taylor. The Huntington native never considered it, never wavered in her belief that she had what it takes to make it in the WNBA. Not after she went undrafted despite having a standout college career at the University of Massachusetts and then Louisville. Not after spending her first two years out of college playing in Lithuania and Poland.

“I just never gave up,” the Chicago Sky rookie guard told Newsday. “When I didn’t get drafted, it was very tough, but I kept working. I know there’s a lot of ways to get into the league.”

That may be true, but few undrafted players have made the immediate impact that Taylor, a former standout at St. Anthony’s High School in Huntington, has had this season.

Six months ago, Taylor was living in a small village in Poland, playing for a EuroLeague team, writing in her journal and hoping to get invited to a WNBA training camp in the spring. Today, as her team prepares to take on the Liberty on Wednesday night at Barclays Center, Taylor, 25, has not only shot her way into a starting role but she has worked her way into the WNBA’s Rookie of the Year conversation.

Taylor’s scoring average of 13.5 points per game is the most by an undrafted rookie in WNBA history and ranks third among all WNBA rookies this season, behind No. 2 overall draft pick Olivia Miles of the Minnesota Lynx and No. 8 overall pick Flau’jae Johnson of the Seattle Storm.

As a young player on a team with veteran guards, Taylor wasn’t expected to get a lot of playing time in her rookie season. Although her minutes were limited early, she turned a few heads when she came off the bench to score 27 points in 23 minutes against Toronto on May 27.

Despite the fact that Chicago was a team badly in need of scoring, it took a record-breaking performance against Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever on June 12 to convince Chicago coach Tyler Marsh to elevate Taylor to a starting role.

Entering the game in the second quarter with her team down by 16, Taylor scored 30 points on 10-for-14 shooting as Chicago took the Fever to overtime before losing. According to the Sky, Taylor’s performance marked just the second time a WNBA player has scored 30 points in 21 minutes. (Danielle Adams also scored 30 points in 21 minutes in 2011 for the San Antonio Stars.)

Taylor has started all 13 games since that game with her first start coming in a loss to the Liberty where she scored 24 points and hit four three-pointers. She has played so well that Marsh now sees her as a go-to player. In Chicago’s 93-91 loss in the Atlanta Dream on Sunday, the team went to Taylor with seven seconds left. She knocked down a three to tie the game before Atlanta bounced back to win with a buzzer beater.

“She shows no fear when she’s out there,” Marsh said in his postgame news conference when asked why he was confident enough to have a rookie take a must-make shot. “I think that’s a big part of her growing into who we think she’s capable of being and who she wants to be moving forward. She’s going to find herself in those positions a lot.”

Those who have followed Taylor’s career closely are not surprised by the way she is embracing the spotlight. Taylor is expecting to have more than 30 friends and family at Wednesday night’s Liberty game, including her high school coach Hugh Flaherty and her parents, Don Taylor and Sheri Lewis-Taylor.

“We are elated,” Flaherty said. “I knew how good she was over the years. She is the best player I’ve ever had and she is just so determined to be good. She just had that confidence. She was determined to get to the WNBA.”

So confident that she never had a Plan B.

“Some people when they don’t get their opportunity say it’s not working and I’m going to find something else,” Taylor said. “For me, I was like this is going to work out. I’m going to figure it out no matter how long it takes.

“Anything else wasn’t an option.”