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The only thing that could stop Taylen Carver (Louisville, Ky.) on Saturday night was the game clock. 

The star freshman for the Montcalm Community College Centurions men’s basketball team helped lead them to a statement win over the weekend with an incredible 46-point performance, knocking down 10 three-pointers and 10 free throws, including six of them in the final 20 seconds, to seal the Centurions first MCCAA conference victory in school history. MCC handed No. 16 Bay College their fourth loss of the season with a 76-70 victory over the Norse. 

Carver’s performance made him an easy choice for the MCCAA Northern Conference Player of the Week honor. However, his week got a little brighter on Wednesday, as it was announced that Carver was also named the NJCAA Division II National Player of the Week. Carver is the first player from NJCAA Division II Region XII to win the honor this season. 

“It’s a really big thing for me,” Carver said, shortly after finding out about the honor from his head coach, Zach Ingles, at shootaround on Wednesday. “Back in high school, I wasn’t doing the things I’m doing now and I never got recognition like this. It’s something very exciting for me to receive.” 

Carver played all 40 minutes of Saturday’s victory, a testament to his work ethic and dedication to preseason conditioning and in-season weightlifting. The Centurions needed every minute and every point from Carver to get the victory over a top contender in the MCCAA. 

“Bay (College) is really good,” said head coach Zach Ingles. “It’s a top 15 team in the country every year and they’ve won our last three league titles and they’ve only lost like two total conference games (in that span), so we needed everything from him.” 

It’s hard not to feel something different when a player is scoring as efficiently as Carver was on Saturday. Early on, he could tell he was in for a potentially special performance. 

“I’d say in the first half, probably after like the fourth three-pointer, I knew I was going to have a great game,” Carver said. “I was definitely feeling it. My teammates just kept looking for me whenever I was open and they kept finding me, so I had to make sure I knocked them down.” 

In his playing days, Ingles was a record-setting point guard for Greenville High School. He continued to make headlines in college, leading Eastern Kentucky University to the Division I NCAA Tournament and further continued his playing days professionally overseas. With his immense amount of playing experience and coaching experience, Ingles gives particular attention to the point guard position and has very high expectations for it. Still, Carver has greatly excelled in the role. 

“He has a very particular offensive system, it’s very difficult to learn,” Carver said. “But it’s been really good for how I play and my play style. I like to do a lot of cuts and come off screens and shoot it. That’s really what’s been helping me score a lot, it’s basically predicated off the way I play.” 

“He’s the definition of what we’re looking for — guards who can handle it, pass it and shoot it,” Ingles added. “I’ve told every guard who’s ever played for me — I can be your blessing and I can be your curse. I’ve played this position; I have this vision of how I think it looks and how it should look. Tay masks it, he gets into it pretty well. Tay is so hard to guard because he’s so quick and he shoots it. Our system is predicated off shooting and passing and Tay is elite at both.” 

It’s been an impressive stretch of games for Carver, who has cemented himself as a top point guard in the country at the NJCAA Division II level. Already smattering his name all over the MCC basketball record books, for all his accomplishments on the court, Ingles lauds the person Carver is over anything else. 

“For me, personally, I think he’s the best point guard at our level anywhere in junior college in America,” Ingles said. “Not just because of this performance, but what he’s consistently done through 15 games. 

“Off the court, he comes with zero baggage,” Ingles added. “He’s a great student, has a good family and is at every team event. He redshirted here a year ago when we weren’t playing games and didn’t miss a thing — that’s hard to do. For two years, to have only played 15 games in two years, to leave your community to come up north, for as good of a basketball player as he is, he’s an even better kid.” 

Media inquiries, please contact:

Shelly Springborn
Director of Communications and Public Relations
shellys@montcalm.edu
989-560-0833