Ryan Taylor (born June 18, 1992) is an American former professional basketball player. He played college basketball for the Marshall Thundering Herd before playing a season in Iceland with ÃÂþróttafélag ReykjavÃÂkur and a season in the CBA with the Indianapolis Blaze.
Talyor joined Marshall in 2012 but redshirted his freshman year. He played 31 of 33 games in 2013âÂÂ2014, starting 29 games and averaging 12.8 points and team leading 7.2 rebounds. In 2014âÂÂ2015 he led Marshall in scoring and rebounding, with 14.1 points and 8.6 rebounds per game, and was selected to the All-Conference USA Third Team. In November 2016, Taylor was suspended by coach Dan D'Antoni for one game after he had been ejected from Marshalls 71âÂÂ61 victory over Jackson State. Taylor had fouled out in the game and had continued to berate the referee from the bench, leading to his ejection. On January 10, 2017, Taylor was named the Oscar Robertson National Player of the Week after he averaged 25.3 points and 13.3 rebounds in Marshall's three victories during the week of January 2âÂÂ7. During the season he passed Dan D'Antoni and Mike D'Antoni on Marshalls all-time scoring list and became the 50th player to break the 1000 point barrier in the schools history. In 2017 he became the first Marshall player to reach career totals of 1,500 points, 800 rebounds and 250 assists.
Taylor signed with ÃÂrvalsdeild karla club ÃÂR in September 2017. He quickly established himself as one of the top players in the country and in December 2017, he was named the best player of the first half of the season. On March 5, Taylor made the game saving block on Haukar's Haukur ÃÂskarsson three point attempt at the buzzer in ÃÂR's 64âÂÂ62 victory. During the regular season, he averaged team highs of 21.9 points and 10.4 rebounds in 22 games.
ÃÂR ended the regular season with the second best record in the league and faced Stjarnan in the first round of the playoffs. In the third game of the series on March 22, Taylor struck Stjarnan's center, Hlynur Bæringsson, in the back of the head which resulted in Hlynur getting a concussion and missing both the rest of the game and the rest of the playoffs. As the referees did not see the hit clearly, Taylor was not ejected from the game and ÃÂR won a 67âÂÂ64 victory. Two days later, Taylor received a three-game suspension from the league for the hit. Without Taylor, ÃÂR managed to edge out victory in the fourth game with a 24-point, 21-rebound performance by Danero Thomas, winning the series 3âÂÂ1. Taylor returned in the third game of ÃÂR's semi-finals series against Tindastóll. After splitting the first two games, Tindastóll went on to win the next two, eliminating ÃÂR 3âÂÂ1 from the playoffs.
In 2019, he played for the Indianapolis Blaze in the Central Basketball Association where he helped the team to the CBA championship. In 5 games for the Blaze, Taylor averaged 11.0 points and 7.2 rebounds per game.
In July 2018, Taylor played for the West Virginia Wildcats in The Basketball Tournament (TBT), a winner-take-all $2 million, single-elimination event. He had a double-double, 16 points and 10 rebounds, in the Wildcats first game, an 114âÂÂ87 victory against 17th-seeded Charlotte Chess Center on July 20. The following day he led the team with 18 points and 11 rebounds but was unable to prevent a 99âÂÂ68 loss against Scarlet & Gray, a team of mostly Ohio State men's basketball alumni, which knocked them out of the tournament. Taylor has subsequently played for Herd That, a team rostered primarily with Marshall alumni.
In 2019, Taylor was named the head boys' basketball coach at St. Joseph Central Catholic High School in Huntington, West Virginia.