Love for grandma, desire to help Cats prompted Taylor Chavez to leave Ducks for UA

Taylor Chavez decided to sleep on it.

The Oregon guard was excited about her conversation with Adia Barnes and the opportunity that was ahead of her — transferring to Tucson and playing for Arizona for the next two seasons.

While her instincts told her to go for it, there was a lot more going on in Chavez’s world. It wasn’t until the next day, April 10, that Chavez knew she was destined to be a Wildcat.

That’s when Chavez visited with her grandmother for the first time since Christmas. Frances Chavez, who helped raise Taylor, has been very ill for the past three months, going back and forth from a Sun City ICU to a rehab facility.

“It’s a miracle she’s still alive. She beat out pneumonia, she beat out the cardiac arrest, she beat out kidney disease, so many other things like just a huge list,” Taylor Chavez said. “I’m the only one who is able to motivate her where she will actually do her rehab, because it is so painful for her. It’s going to be a very long process — probably a year or so — to get her back to walking.”

It was during Taylor’s visit that everything clicked.

“I got so excited I told my grandma, ‘I’m coming to U of A. You better be ready, I’m going to be seeing you all the time. You’re not getting away with quitting on these workouts — that’s not an option.’ She was so ecstatic and excited,” Taylor Chavez said.

“I told her, ‘You need to get better so you can come to the games. You’re walking in, you are watching all my games this year.’”

After Oregon’s season ended in the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament, Chavez took some time to decide if she would enter the transfer portal. As she watched Arizona cruise all the way to the national title game, she noticed something.

“Seeing Coach Adia and how she interacted with her team and just her whole aura and the way she coaches was something that really was attractive to me, and something that I wanted to be a part of,” Chavez said.

“… One thing that made me think of Coach Adia as someone I’d want to play for was the UConn game and seeing how she interacted with her team. I know she got a lot of criticism for (making a gesture) in the (postgame) huddle. But as a player, you want to play for someone, to play hard for someone who gets it. And who understands that’s what’s going through your head as a player, when you just beat UConn. That’s what you are thinking: ‘Nobody thought we could do it and we did it.’

“I’m glad I saw that. It just lit a fire under me. That is so awesome — that’s someone I want to play for. That’s when the seed was planted, I guess you could say even before I entered the portal.”

The Surprise Valley Vista High School product grew up rooting for the Wildcats. Her uncle lives in Tucson, and the rest of her family is a short drive away.

It’s a perfect fit.

Back to homepage

Subscriber Login

Keep reading with a digital access subscription.

Subscribe now

Chavez averaged 4.1 points and 2.1 assists last season while shooting 33% from 3-point range and 36% from the field. She said she enjoyed her time as a Duck, and wouldn’t trade playing with the likes of Sabrina Ionescu, Ruthy Hebard, Satou Sabally and others for anything.

However, the coronavirus pandemic year took its toll. Chavez was thousands of miles away when her grandmother woke up Dec. 31 with chest pains. Her heart stopped, and had no pulse for seven or eight minutes.

Frances Chavez had to be resuscitated. She hasn’t been home since.

Taylor Chavez flew back and forth to Phoenix to be with her family, forcing her to miss multiple games. Chavez praised her former coach, Kelly Graves, for allowing her to do it. Every time she left campus, Chavez would have to quarantine; upon returning, she was subject to extra tests.

“There was a couple of different times where we didn’t know she was going to make it through the night and if something like that occurred, I wanted to make sure I was there to go through the mourning process with my family. That’s not something I wanted to do by myself,” Chavez said. “(Graves) let that be my first priority.”

The 5-foot-10-inch guard will add a lot to the Wildcats. The “3 and D” player — a knockdown 3-point shooter who plays defense — shot nearly 50% from the field and 47% from the 3-point line as a sophomore, and was named the Pac-12’s Sixth Player of the Year. She has 81 steals in her career, and can also distribute the ball.

Chavez says she has “two different sides to my game.”

“On offense, it’s a lot more smooth, as opposed to defensively I try to be more physical and more hard-nosed,” Chavez said. “In this role, it will look a little bit different than what it looked like in Oregon. I want to try to create more. And, of course, be a knockdown shooter … be a floor leader and be my teammates’ No. 1 cheerleader. That’s something that I’ll definitely bring to the team is that positive attitude.”

Along the way, Chavez has had a unique view of Arizona’s rise. She was in the stands five years ago, when Oregon won the Pac-12 title on the last day of the season at McKale Center. She took a photo with the trophy after the game.

Arizona — and Barnes — had shown some interest in Chavez during the Wildcats’ six-win season in 2017-18, but the guard had already named her three finalists.

During her latest recruitment, things were different.

“I’m excited to be a part of (the program) and I know there is a super-loyal fan base,” Chavez said. “I’m going to give McKale, Coach Adia and the program everything I have.

“I’m really excited just to find ways to help U of A stay as a premier team in the country.”