When kids grow up dreaming of playing college basketball, usually the team they want to play for is the one they grow up rooting for. So for someone from Kentucky, the dream is ultimately to play for the Kentucky Wildcats, and that is why the team has a history of getting Kentucky’s best players because kids there grow up dreaming about playing in Rupp Arena. Well, for Taylor Rohde, this dream of playing for his hometown team became a reality in 2008.
Rohde grew up in the Northeast before moving to Mesa, Arizona in the sixth grade. Upon moving to Mesa, Rohde became an Arizona State fan with the campus located in neighboring Tempe. As Taylor developed into a Division I caliber prospect, playing for the Sun Devils became a reality. He was offered a scholarship by incoming coach Herb Sendek in 2006, a full two years before Rohde could enter college. He committed in the summer of 2006 and was officially the first person to commit to Sendek after he was hired.
“They had just gotten a new coaching staff and I wanted to be part of a rebuilding program so I signed really early,” says Taylor, explaining his decision to commit to Arizona State. “I was Coach Sendek’s first recruit which made me feel really involved in the rebuilding effort. I just really wanted to be a part of an up-and-coming program. I definitely felt that being close to my family and having people in the stands cheering for me would be really beneficial for my career at Arizona State.”
While playing in front of his friends and family every night, and being a part of the revival of Sun Devil basketball seemed like it would be the perfect situation for Rohde, upon arriving on campus, things didn’t go exactly as planned. During his freshman year, he only played four minutes per game on a team that didn’t reach the NCAA Tournament. Despite being unhappy with his limited minutes, Rohde stayed at Arizona State for another year. That year wasn’t much better.
During his sophomore year, Taylor’s minutes doubled and he was the first big man off the bench for Sendek, but he still wasn’t happy. Rohde had signed on eagerly in 2006 because he wanted to be a part of something special but felt like his first two years in Tempe hadn’t lived up to those grand expectations. He felt like his talents weren’t suited to the system, and he would have a better experience elsewhere. He decided to transfer.
“I just felt like for my basketball career I needed to make a change,” he says. “I felt like I was not able to display all of my talents at Arizona State in the system they had there.”
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When he was looking at schools to transfer to, initially Rohde was looking only at Division I schools. He had played in the Pac-10 after all and that was one of the highest levels of basketball around. Transferring to another D-I institution seemed like the logical thing to do. He visited the University of South Dakota and was hearing from UC-Davis and UC-Bakersfield, but after talking to members of his family, Rohde decided he didn’t necessarily need to transfer to a Division I institution. The root of his unhappiness at Arizona State stemmed from his lack of playing time and he didn’t want to put himself in position to sit on the bench for his last two years of eligibility. He began looking at Division II schools, which led him to Alaska and the University of Alaska at Anchorage (UAA).
“I liked the coaching staff a lot,” he says when explaining his reasoning for choosing. “They were very persistent when they were recruiting me and it is a great program that competes against some of the best Division II programs in the nation. It also hosts the Great Alaska Shootout every year which is a tournament where they compete against Division I schools, so I felt like I was getting the best of both worlds coming here.”
While Rohde believed Anchorage was the best place for his basketball future, it was certainly a culture shock for him. Phoenix is one of the largest metropolitan areas in the nation, with a population larger than the whole state of Alaska. Not only was the number of people a drastic change for Rohde, but so was the weather. Arizona is one of the few states in America where shorts are part of the wardrobe for 12 months of the year, while Alaska is exactly the opposite. Snow, bitter cold and perpetual darkness define the climate up north, something Rohde says was hard to adjust to.
“It’s definitely a lot different than Arizona so I feel like it is a really good experience for me to be up here and live in a different place,” he says about Anchorage. “The community here is really great since it is small, it is very tight knit and everyone here is really supportive of the school and the team.
“The thing I like least is definitely the darkness. Coming from Arizona I like being able to walk outside and see the sun but here that doesn’t always happen so that’s definitely the thing I like the least. It is also really cold out, but you get used to bundling up so that’s not a huge deal anymore.”
Once Rohde adjusted to life off the court in Alaska, he began life on the court there. Since he transferred to a Division II school, he wasn’t required to sit out a year before playing and he stepped in right away to contribute last season. Last season, he averaged 16 points and 6.5 rebounds per game in leading the Seawolves to a 24-10 record and the second round of the NCAA Tournament, setting the stage for a large senior season.
For his senior year in Anchorage, Rohde would be joined by a familiar face in Marcus Jackson, a former teammate of his from Arizona State. When Jackson decided to transfer, he contacted Rohde about UAA before being heavily recruited by the team’s coaching staff. This year, Jackson and Rohde have led UAA to an 18-5 record, including a 64-62 loss to Murray State in the Great Alaska Shootout, with Rohde averaging 20 points and eight rebounds per contest, solidifying himself as one of the conference’s top performers.
So in the end, Rohde’s dream of playing for his hometown school was realized but the fulfillment of that dream didn’t make him happy. It took going to a new place with a different style of play for him to truly find himself on the basketball court. He’s done that, and has no regrets about his fateful decision almost two years ago.
“Looking back on it, I think Arizona State is a great program but I think the situation is best for me here at University of Alaska-Anchorage so I definitely made the right choice,” he says. “The style of play, the coaching staff, the quality of life, everything here has just been great for me.”
What would it take for you to skip out on D-I to go D-II?
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