#SigningStories: Taliah Scott

Taliah Scott | G | 5-9 | Orange Park, Fla. | St. Johns Country Day School

#SigningStories, as told by Arkansas women’s basketball head coach Mike Neighbors

We began recruiting Taliah Scott 12 years ago.

No, we weren’t sending her underclass mail, as she was entering pre-K.

No, we weren’t evaluating her potential as a future student-athlete before she took an algebra class.

No, we hadn’t offered her a scholarship at the age of 5.

We were, however, beginning to build a relationship with a young travel ball coach from the state of Florida.

Kenny Kalina was in the startup of building Florida Girls (FGB). I was an assistant at Xavier just learning the ropes of recruiting. I couldn’t get the older, more established travel ball programs to take my calls. Kenny was facing the exact same things in the inverse, so we started talking to one another.

Fast forward 12 years… FGB grew into a national brand that every recruiter in the country had saved in their contacts. Over the years, there was never a time or an opportunity that made sense for us to have an FGB player on our roster… We recruited several and had a few make official visits, but the timing and/or fit was never right for us to sign one of them… Until now in the Class of 2023 and Taliah Scott.

Kenny had a young player join his FGB family that was a dynamic scorer but simultaneously a dynamic playmaker… that’s ball these days.

Associate head coach Todd Schaefer had become friends with Kenny, and during a conversation with him, learned she was relentless in her pursuit to constantly improve… that’s more of our type of player.

Coach Schaefer’s superpower is working with players who really desire to be a great basketball player, not ones in love with being recruited… We want the ones in love with being great. There was an immediate connection there with this player.

Due to COVID-19, there had been no off-campus recruiting allowed by the NCAA. Developing relationships were unlike any time in history for all of us. Zoom calls that didn’t exist in recruiting before were now the new normal. Despite all the challenges and adversity, Todd was able to connect us to Taliah, Marika, Derrick and Jamal.

As the relationships grew, the excitement to meet in person once COVID restrictions were lifted grew as well. That finally happened in the summer of 2021. This allowed all 358 programs in the NCAA to choose where they went to see future players for the first time in a while.

With Maryn Archer and Jenna Lawrence already committed, the Razorbacks chose to see Taliah Scott out of the other 20,000 players in the class and the rest of FGB.

Coach Schaefer and I traveled to Indianapolis for the reboot of recruiting on July 6, 2021. We grabbed our seats and settled in along the baseline with 50+ other collegiate coaches from all over the country. Taliah’s first shot came in transition on a 30-foot pullup jumper against a retreating defender. NET!!! Her play continued to wow the gym and all watching. It was then that Coach Todd observed we were the only university with two coaches in attendance and I was the only head coach there.

Over the next seven days, Pauline Love and Todd sat courtside for every minute of every game Taliah played. It was unanimous we needed Taliah Scott to be a Razorback.

When the rules allowed us to contact Taliah and her family, we would learn it meant a lot to them we were there… that we were first… that we stayed there.

The next step in recruiting is a visit. They can be official visits after a certain calendar date. They can also be unofficial, which is allowed on almost any date (excluding a few dead periods throughout the year). The main difference is institutions pay for an official. Families pay for unofficial ones. That is a big difference.

When the Scotts agreed to visit unofficially in September of 2021, we knew this was evidence they were just as interested in Arkansas as we were in the Scotts. Once they stepped on campus, we were more certain than ever Taliah Scott was distinctive.

Her questions were more about practice than games.

Her questions were more about future teammates than her playing time.

Her questions were more about the next 40 years than the next four years.

Every single person who met that family had the same message… How can we get this kid to Fayetteville?

The last meeting before someone leaves campus is a recap of where we’ve been, where we are and where we are going. It’s basically a “what’s next?” conversation. We completed all the how much everyone enjoyed XYZ. We completed all the how much we wanted them to join our basketball family. We were about to launch into the “what’s next?” conversation… the coming to Florida to visit her, the coming to her school to watching her games, the things all the other colleges were going to say to get her to come to their school, etc.…

I was preparing to deliver the final speech to leave with her on the trip home when she most politely interrupted me and said, “Coach, I want to be a Razorback.”

I thought, I had misheard her. The room went silent as everyone seemed to be thinking the same. The shock and surprise on everyone’s face quickly turned into a celebration when she said, “like right now, I’m committing.”

Those new to recruiting might think that is the end of recruiting… It’s not. The legendary coach Andy Landers once told me he loved when a prospect would commit because “that made it obvious who the competition was.”

From Sept. 13, 2021, until today, more than a few coaches and institutions tried to get Taliah (and her family) to change their decisions.

Thanks to the trust we built together, all of Arkansas will get to see Taliah in a Razorback uniform beginning next season!

THE ACCOLADES:

• 11 ranked recruit, according to the 2023 HoopGurlz Recruiting Rankings
• Five-star prospect who was just named to the 2023 Jersey Mike’s Naismith High School Trophy Preseason Watch List
• Went off during her junior season in 2021-22, averaging 31.5 points, 6.2 rebounds, 4.0 assists and 3.4 steals per game for St. Johns Country Day School
• Led her team to the school’s first 7A Final Four showing as a sophomore
• As a player for Florida Girls Basketball, was the scoring champion with a total of 660 points (31.4 PPG), which was the 11th best in the nation
• Has a myriad of accolades from high school, especially following her junior season, including Florida Times Union All-First Coast Player of the Year, News4Jax Girls Basketball Player of the Year, MaxPreps Junior All-American, among others
• Awarded the 3-Point Shootout Champion at the Curry Camp, UA Elite 24 and SLAM Vol. 4
• Hit the 1,000-point mark during her sophomore season and is just 176 points away from that 2,000-point milestone

MORE INFORMATION

For more information about Arkansas Women’s Basketball, follow us on Twitter and Instagram at @RazorbackWBB and on Facebook at Facebook.com/RazorbackWBB. Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube Channel, “Kickin’ It In The Neighborhood” for an inside look at the Razorback women’s basketball program and check out The Neighborhood podcasts at CoachNeighbors.com.