Shaka Smart and Isaiah Taylor -- should be a sight to see

Brian Hamilton writes about the energy Shaka Smart is infusing into the Texas program. Here's a bit about Isaiah Taylor, formerly of the East Bay:

"Taylor, the 6'1" guard who led the team in scoring last year (13.1 ppg), will be at the center of everything. He returned for his junior season due to a combination of lukewarm evaluations from the NBA, the prospects of Texas's new system and a recommendation from ShawnDre' Jones, a former AAU teammate now playing for Richmond, VCU's crosstown rival. "Man, y'all got a good coach, and you're going to like him," Taylor recalls Jones saying.

Jones was right. Taylor says he collapsed in the locker room for about 90 minutes after his first summer workout—"It was just so hard to move," he says—but he looks more muscular. Taylor is custom-fit for an offense that requires guards to create. He has the physicality to be voracious in ball-screen defense; during one practice Taylor harassed Eric Davis Jr. until the freshman fell to the floor. The key now is for Taylor to learn to impart his confidence to everyone else instead of sagging when a teammate can't match his level of intensity or talent. "He's gotten tremendously better," says assistant David Cason. "A lot of the great players have some of the same traits—Hey, I can do that, why can't you? Once he channels that, we'll have a chance."

Taylor merely wants a chance at atonement, after a disappointing sophomore experience in general. "It wasn't satisfying at all," he says. "We had big expectations, and we didn't meet [them]. I [broke my wrist in November], came back, got back in my groove, but we were still losing games. The cohesion wasn't there for the team. I think we're getting that back now. The new staff, they bring something that we were missing last year."