Prairie View A&M head coach Tai Dillard (left) visits with UTSA assistant Amber Gregg Saturday at the Convocation Center. Dillard worked on the coaching staff and Gregg played for UTSA teams that reached the NCAA tournament in 2008 and 2009. – Photo by Jerry Briggs
By Jerry Briggs
Special for The JB Replay
Tai Dillard returns home to San Antonio on Saturday, with the first-year head coach of the Prairie View A&M Lady Panthers leading her team into the Convocation Center to take on the UTSA Roadrunners.
Tipoff is at 1 p.m.
Dillard is a San Antonio native who played for the powerhouse Sam Houston High School teams in the late 1990s and for the San Antonio Silver Stars of the WNBA from 2003-05.
After high school, she moved on to the University of Texas, where she learned the game under head coach Jody Conradt and a UT assistant by the name of Karen Aston.
Aston, now the fifth-year head coach of the Roadrunners, recruited Dillard and another former Sam Houston player, Annissa (Hastings) Jackson, to Texas.
Jackson is the head coach at San Antonio’s Wagner High School.
Dillard, meanwhile, is in her first season as a head coach in college basketball after working for almost two decades as an assistant, including 2007-12 at UTSA under Rae Rippetoe-Blair.
“Just two of the most competitive players and two of the best people that I’ve ever coached in my lifetime,” Aston said. “I mean, (Tai)’s a treasure. She was just one of those players who put on her hard hat every day, as I’m sure she’s done as a coach.
“She was an absolute pleasure to coach. She’s got a wonderful family. She’s a San Antonio legend, in my opinion. I use her as a story a lot when I have young players who struggle, because, as a freshman she didn’t get to play very much.
“And then, right at the end of her freshman year, right before the conference tournament, I remember this so vividly, it was like the light came on, and she never really looked back once that happened.”
Dillard played in high school at Sam Houston under coach Charlotte Jones, earning all-state honors as a junior and senior, as the team compiled a record of 60-14.
Sam Houston reached the state semifinals in both years, falling to Bay City in 1998 and to Dallas Lincoln in 1999.
Records
Prairie View A&M 2-6
UTSA 3-5
Coming up
Prairie View A&M at UTSA, Saturday, 1 p.m.
Notable
After opening the season by playing a schedule that included four Power Four conference teams, plus the UNLV Lady Rebels, the Roadrunners emerged with five losses.
But Coach Karen Aston hopes the experience gave the players a perspective on what it will take to compete in the upcoming American Conference race.
“The schedule obviously didn’t do this young team any favors, if you look at it just from a win-loss perspective,” Aston said.
“But,” she added, “if you look at it from a perspective that they didn’t need to have a false sense of who they were going into conference play — they needed to understand what it takes to compete against a good basketball team.
“They needed to understand what their weaknesses were. For lack of better words, they needed to become a team. This is a new group that wasn’t — and still isn’t — where they need to be from a team perspective.”
She said the team still needs to grow because of so many new players in the system and because of others who have taken on expanded roles.
“We’re growing,” she said, “but are we going to be exactly where we need to be when we open up against Tulane (on Dec. 30). Probably not. But I think we’re getting closer every day, if they just … continue to work on the things it’s going to take to win close games.”