Longwood University Athletics issued the following announcement on Nov. 27
Tra'Dayja Smith has always lived in the margins as a point guard who has helped guide the Longwood women's basketball team to success over the past two seasons.
The Madisonville, Texas, native's impact has resonated through a joyful team that is ruthlessly competitive, and now she returns for a fifth season due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. That competitive joy and the pursuit of greatness is part of what brought her back after she graduated in the spring.
"We're competitive. I think I love that the most," said Smith, an All-Big South Honorable selection last season. "Competitive and the joy we have together.
"When we're together, you're going to be laughing. We can make anybody laugh. The competitiveness in practice, like, we're teammates, but when we're on two separate teams, you wouldn't think that we would be teammates. Everybody's going at everybody's neck. And that's what you want in a team that's trying to chase a championship. There are no days where you will let your teammates slack off. So I think the competitiveness and joy is what I love about this team."
Smith has already written her name in the annals of Longwood women's basketball lore, and now she returns to not only compete at the highest level but also to serve as a sensei, passing along the hidden arts of point guard play to a group of talented newcomers eager to learn from a sensei.
And while she does that in her final season on the court at Longwood, she will also get to do so in front of her hometown fans during Longwood's marathon road trip in her home state of Texas. That three-game swing begins Sunday at Lamar and continues Tuesday at Sam Houston.
"It feels great, knowing that I can teach somebody else," said Smith. "Because once before, somebody had to teach me. I'm glad I can pass it down to somebody else, all the knowledge that I have, down to a freshman or anybody who might benefit from something I've learned."
"When DayDay first got here, we were really encouraging her to be more vocal," Tillett said. "Even her coach at Trinity Valley was saying to us, that's the area she needs to grow the most. Then you blink, and it's her super senior year, and there's not a day that she doesn't provide profound statements in a team setting that you look around and hope that her teammates know how valuable this is.
"So I think that's the benefit of us having her that extra year, and it's a benefit for her too. For her growth as a woman, to now have that confidence and that knowledge and that want to be a mentor to other people that she can execute that within our program now at a really high level."
"In the summer when we had our shooting workouts, we'll just go in a little small group," said Smith, who holds the program's single season assists record. "And I'll show them a move that I do or how I read the defense. Like if they lateral hedge, or whatever defense they're in, then I just tell them, 'This is what I do in that situation. You do your own things, but this is how I would read it.'"
That ability to communicate, break things down and read the game is a part of how Smith has served as an extension of Tillett on the court over the past two years. With Longwood's style of play, the relationship between point guard and head coach is critical to the success of the team.
"I feel like Tillett and I just have a special connection," Smith, whose 355 career assists already ranks eighth in program history in just three seasons. "She could be thinking of a play, I call the play, and then she's like, 'That's what I was thinking.' We just work off each other. I think it's a Capricorn thing, okay? We're both Capricorns. I'm gonna say the Capricorn thing [laughs]."
"You need someone that can go back and forth with you a little bit, both with humor and with strategy," said Tillett, who enters her fourth year on the bench for Longwood. "There's been times in huddles where she's suggested game changes that we as a staff are like, 'Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, let's do it.' That's trust on both sides. Her ability and knowledge and strategy, and then us trusting her to be open enough to listen to a player's strategy. And she's done that.
The results have been plain to see, as the last two seasons have reached historic heights with Smith running the point and Tillett calling the shots on the sideline. The team roared to a third-place finish in the Big South last season, the best in program history since joining the league. That paved the way for a first-round bye in the tournament, a tournament home game for the second straight season and a trip to the Big South Tournament semifinals.
"For us coaches, I mean, that's why you do it right?" said Tillett when talking about the growth of Smith as a leader and the impact she has had on the program. "Yes, you want to win championships, but it's all the pieces that lead up to the opportunity to win a championship that make our jobs special. We want to watch every single woman grow.
"We talk a lot about being an empowered woman and chasing your biggest dream, and here she comes from this tiny little town in Madisonville, Texas, goes to a really successful junior college, competes at the national level, and then takes a risk on us at Longwood, a program that was not proven and desperately needed a veteran point guard in order to elevate in the way that we have and the amount of time that we have. And she's come, and she's doing it, and we still get her for another year. So gosh, you hope that the ending is that she continues to grow throughout the season, and she gets everything she is striving for, both individually and collective for our team."
With a deep, competitive core group returning along with a hungry, eager and talented group of newcomers ready to learn from Sensei Smith, the future is limitless for the Longwood women's basketball family.
Original source can be found here.
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