Off Campus: Former Villanova player Taylor King talks of drug use during troubled stint with Wildcats

Former Villanova basketball player Taylor King was kind enough last week to connect some dots about 'Nova's recent hoops history.

Not the good kind of history - the 2009 Final Four appearance and the previous trips to the NCAA Sweet 16. This history is what's come since then, the struggles that have had Villanova coach Jay Wright talking about the need to re-create the culture that had made the Wildcats a success under Wright.

One could argue that King, a one-year 'Nova player three seasons back, was such a minor figure at Villanova that nobody should care that he is now willing to talk about how he was suspended in 2010 for marijuana use and left the Main Line after that season.

A culture within a team is as important as X and O strengths. And here was a player who talked not just about his drug use but how he repeatedly would leave not just campus but the state after curfew, staying with his girlfriend in New Jersey before returning to Villanova just in time for morning workouts.

His own issues, King said in an interview with CBSSports.com, came from a terrible relationship with a domineering father which is now in a state of repair.

King's father, from Huntington Beach, Calif., was so into his son's career that he had rented an apartment in Durham, N.C., when the youngest of his four children enrolled at Duke. The father acknowledged he never let his son be a kid.

That was obvious at Villanova. After one game when King had played well for Villanova but had made a couple of bad passes late, he was praised for his game in the locker room, but was seen crying on the bus after getting off the phone with his father, a Villanova source said.

Talking Friday night after Villanova's opener, Wright didn't want to say much about King's time at the school.

"I don't want to share his personal problems," Wright said.

In the interview with CBSSports.com, the transfer from Duke admitted he failed a drug test just a couple of weeks after arriving at Duke, quickly putting him in "the doghouse."

He played one season for Mike Krzyzewski, then transferred to Villanova. At 'Nova, King claimed, a former teammate smoked marijuana with him one time just before a drug test. Another time, King said, a team manager told him how to beat a drug test by taking Q-Carbo, a cleansing drink bought at a GNC Store.

King was a former McDonald's high school all-American, with a game well-suited for big-time college ball, a power forward who was a strong rebounder and dangerous three-point shooter.

Except, by his admission, King seemed to have little idea of what it took to be a top-level college athlete. He told CBSSports.com how he took to partying with a group away from the basketball team during the year he sat out after transferring from Duke.

During the season that he played, "they'd do bed check and right after they left, I'd drive an hour and 15 minutes" to be with his girlfriend in New Jersey, King said, "stay until 5 or 6 in the morning, wake up, and drive back for workouts."

King said that when he found out late in the season that there would be a random drug test, he went to Wright's office and told the coach that he would not pass it. He was suspended for the last regular-season game of the year. King told CBSSports.com he had used marijuana with one of the team's starters the night before. King said he was "livid" that although the teammate did not start the next game, he did play while King sat.

Villanova's drug policy, published on its athletics website, states that sanctions are discretionary on the first offense. On the second positive test, a one-year suspension becomes mandatory.

It is not clear where King fell on that spectrum, but he said Wright asked him to go into rehab if he wanted to return to the school and he declined. Villanova called his withdrawal voluntary at the time. King said it was not. He played a season of NAIA ball at Concordia University in California before flunking out, he said, then played in Canada. He just signed a contract to play professionally in Taiwan.

The CBSsports.com story is a terrific peel-back look at a basketball life that turned in the wrong direction. What is missing from King is any sense of remorse that he may have hurt his teams with his behavior.

Averaging 19 minutes a game that one season with Villanova, King averaged 7.4 points and 5.3 rebounds. Villanova lost in the second round of that NCAA tournament and hasn't won an NCAA tournament game since.

King's troubles were not completely responsible for the quick exit, not even close. Wright made it clear that he didn't think King's personal issues were a widespread problem on the team. That team had other issues. And you can't say that problems in 2010 led to the X-and-O issues that dogged Villanova in 2011-12.

However, Wright talked before the season about how he knew the Wildcats "could be committed to our core values and we could still slip. I didn't think we could lose our core values."

Talking Friday night after Villanova's season-opening victory, Wright didn't deny that the dots connected back to King and that 2009-10 season.

"That was the start," Wright said.