SEC's Preseason Player of the Year is following in his sister's footsteps

The best-projected basketball player in the Southeastern Conference might not even be the best player in his own home.

Texas A&M junior guard Wade Taylor IV was named the SEC Preseason Player of the Year on Tuesday. That’s something to brag about.

But it might not be enough this holiday season.

See, Taylor’s older sister, Kennedy Taylor, set career records at Texas State University and in the Sun Belt Conference last season with 769 assists. She also averaged 9.5 points per game in her career, which concluded at the end of last season.

“There’s a lot of pressure on me. My sister has a head start on me,” Wade said on Wednesday at SEC Media Days. “Breaking a lot of records in the Sun Belt Conference. We can have those arguments at the dinner table at Christmas and Thanksgiving. Who’s the best PG? I have two more years to catch her. Hopefully, I can rally some points up and rally some assists up to come back and get her.”

Wade has 224 career assists in two seasons at A&M. He’s not going to catch his sister in that category. But he’s averaging 12 points after a breakout season in 2022-23. Wade averaged 16.3 points per game and hit 79 3-pointers while leading the Aggies to a 25-10 record.

Those who’ve watched Wade play know that he’s one of the best players in the SEC, maybe even the nation.

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Taylor IV was one of only three NCAA Division I players with more than 500 points, 125 assists and 50 steals last season.

But he said he didn’t really know it until Feb. 21, when A&M upset No. 11 Tennessee, 68-63. Wade led the way with 25 points, 16 of which came from the free-throw line.

“I would say after we played Tennessee, I felt like that was the game where I thought, ‘OK, I have a chance to be a pretty good player,’” Wade said. “That night, the atmosphere in Reed Arena — after getting that ranked win — I felt like that was the turning point in my career.”

Really, there wasn’t so much as a turning point as there was a turning series.

Wade has always been good since arriving at A&M from Lancaster High School three years ago. But he made the leap to greatness during last season’s 10-game stretch from Feb. 7 to March 11.

During that span, Wade averaged 21.3 points. He also converted 90.8 percent of his attempts at the charity line (79-of-87). Just as important, he only turned the ball over 28 times while facing some of the SEC’s best teams.

That’s why A&M head coach Buzz Williams disagrees that the Tennessee game was what vaulted Wade to greatness.

Williams said it was a steady climb.

“I don’t know that I would think of IV that it was ‘this’ game that turned,” Williams said. “I think his turnover rate continued to decrease. He began to get fouled at a very high clip. I think those two things were intertwined. Normally, if he wasn’t getting fouled and he wasn’t turning it over, we were getting a shot.

“I think those things were probably the things that he paid attention to the most. Don’t turn it over. Get fouled. Then it became a team thing. Let’s get a shot. If we can’t get a shot, let’s get fouled. He led the charge in that regard.”

It’s also hard to forget that he led the Aggies back into the NCAA Tournament, too.

You can bet that will make a strong argument at the dinner table this Thanksgiving.