Indiana Fever take Celeste Taylor No. 15 overall in WNBA Draft

COLUMBUS — After defending Caitlin Clark twice this season, Celeste Taylor will now play alongside the sport’s biggest star. The Indiana Fever selected Clark with the No. 1 overall pick in Monday’s WNBA Draft and then took Taylor in the second round with the 15th selection.

“I mean, she’s a terrific player,” Taylor said of Clark, via ESPN’s broadcast. “Terrific. You know, it’s hard to guard her. We tried our best but to now be teammates, and trying to get after it and work hard in training camp, I’m excited.

“It’s taken me back to when we played together at USA, but it’s gonna be amazing.”

Taylor’s selection marks the third time ever Ohio State has had two players picked in the same WNBA Draft, as point guard Jacy Sheldon got the call from the Dallas Wings at No. 5 overall earlier in the night. The program also accomplished that feat in 2018 when both Kelsey Mitchell and Stephanie Mavunga were drafted by the Indiana Fever. Mitchell, notably, is still with the Fever.

Taylor earned Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year honors and was a finalist for the Naismith Defensive Player of the Year award in her lone season with the Buckeyes after winning ACC Defensive Player of the Year the previous season at Duke.

The 5-foot-11 guard and Valley Stream, New York, native spent the first two seasons of her career at Texas, the next two at Duke and the final year of her college eligibility at Ohio State.

“I just take a lot of pride in the journey,” an emotional Taylor said to ESPN’s Holly Rowe after getting drafted. “It’s definitely a long road. My parents, having them as my backbone to continue to support me at every single stop … it was hard, but just knowing that they had my back, it helped me.”

Taylor led the Big Ten with 2.5 steals per game this season. She also averaged double-digit points for the fourth time in her career, posting 10.1 points per game, not to mention her career-high 3.4 assists per contest as well as 4.1 rebounds and 0.9 blocks per outing. She shot a career-best 40.9% from the field and tied for the second-most 3-pointers on the team with 40.

Although Taylor’s graduate campaign ended at the hands of Duke, her former team, in the NCAA Tournament’s Round of 32, her impact was still felt at Ohio State.

“Great kid. Really happy I had a chance to coach Celeste, and she’s got a bright future ahead for her,” Buckeyes head coach Kevin McGuff said of Taylor after the season-ending defeat. “She was really good in the program from a leadership standpoint, just bringing intensity every day.

“She got significantly better from start to finish. She added a lot to the season, for sure.”

Before making the move to Ohio State, Taylor averaged 11.4 points, 4.8 rebounds, 2.5 assists and 2.2 steals per game in her final year with the Blue Devils. She registered six 15-plus-point performances that season, a year in which she shot 39.4% from the field, including 32.1% from downtown. She knocked down at least three 3-pointers in seven games along the way.

As mentioned above, Taylor started her college career at Texas, where she started 52 games across two seasons.

Taylor is best known for her defense. She piled up 296 steals over her four-year career, averaging more than 2.0 steals per game in a season three times: once at Texas, once at Duke and once at Ohio State.

The best moment of her first-team All-ACC season in 2022-23 was arguably her second-round NCAA Tournament performance against Colorado when she became the first women’s player to record an 8-8-8-8 stat line in March Madness since 2000. She tallied eight points, eight assists, 10 rebounds and a Duke single-game record 10 steals in the loss.

She notched at least five steals in four separate games at Ohio State this season, maxing out with seven thefts in a win at Penn State on Feb. 22. Taylor chipped in 16 points and seven assists in the process.

Taylor was part of the Buckeyes’ first outright Big Ten regular season title since 2009-10. Her next stop in a well-traveled career is the WNBA’s Indiana Fever.