Most college athletes can handle the physical rigors of their chosen sport. It’s the mental aspect that wears them down emotionally, spiritually and psychologically.

Taylor Jones could have easily given up playing college basketball by now.

She embarked on her playing career at Oregon State having just lost her mother to cancer. Double hip surgery. Double shoulder surgery. “Right now, I could redo all those surgeries if I had the time,” she said.

And yet, Taylor presses onward, refusing to quit as a senior at Texas.

The 6-foot-4 forward has been reading a new book lately, “The Courage to Be Disliked.” It’s helped her discard what she can’t control and focus on “playing my hardest and using the talent that God has given me every single day, and just trying to be the best that I possibly can.”

WATCH AND SUBSCRIBE: Follow A to Z Sports’ Texas Longhorns channel on YouTube.

The book itself is a dialogue between a Japanese philosopher and a young man who comes to realize that each of us controls our own destiny. “That book, I highly recommend it,” Jones said.

Jones’ newfound inner peace has led to some tremendous success here lately on the court. She’s rang up back-to-back 20-point games and was named the SEC player of the week for No. 5 Texas.

Rori Harmon leads the offense, Madison Booker is darn near unstoppable and the freshmen are getting tons of well-deserved praise. And there’s Taylor, cleaning up the boards (6.9 per game) and getting all kinds of put-back layups and second-chance opportunities when others miss.

“Just knowing that, like, I was put here for a reason, and I think it's sort of a miracle that I'm still able to play and play at this level,” Taylor said. “Not every day is promised. You don’t know what’s coming up next, and just every single day playing, going out there and playing the hardest I can, even if I am in pain or if I am battling something, it's a blessing to be out there.”

Whether it’s the scouting report, intuition or namaste, Taylor has been in the right place at the right time here lately.

She naturally drifts to the opposite side of the rim when shots are going up, knowing that most rebounds tend to bounce long. Taylor brought up the old Dennis Rodman documentary about how one of the NBA’s greatest rebounders used to calculate and learn his teammates’ jump shots.

Rodman gobbled up all kinds of rebounds just because he studied his teammates and knew how the ball would react when they missed shots. Taylor said she would rebound for teammates last year during open gym and just watched what happened to the ball.

“Now I think because I did that so much and just seeing how our guards play and how they shoot,” Taylor said, “I feel like I have a really good idea of like it's just instinct.

“My mind sees it as kind of like a puzzle.”

The Forney native is playing some of her best basketball at Texas. It helps to be a sixth-year senior, having played three seasons at Oregon State and now three at UT. But with all those injuries, it wasn’t exactly sunshine and rainbows.

Taylor can laugh about it now. She’s on fire at the moment with a clear mind and a good book.

“Freshman-year Taylor, I think that she would have just been really excited to be here,” Taylor said. “I think it may have been a lot, though. I’m not going to lie.”