Tasha Pointer enters the third season of her second stint as an assistant coach at Rutgers during the 2024-25 slate. Pointer returns to Piscataway as an assistant coach after a Hall of Fame playing career "On the Banks" and 21 total years of coaching experience, including eight seasons on the sidelines with the Scarlet Knights from 2007-15.
Pointer mainly works with the Rutgers’ point guards and serves as the Scarlet Knights Offensive Specialist.
Pointer helped the Scarlet Knights continue to grow in their second season under head coach Coquese Washington. The team celebrated its 50th season in program history, highlighting historic moments, players and coaches throughout the year, which culminated in a grand celebration for Alumni Weekend. RU also inducted its inaugural Knights of Honor class in the 1982, 2000 and 2007 teams with banner is Jersey Mike's Arena.
The squad earned its sixth advance sellout in program history and first since 2006, against Iowa, which became the most attended basketball game between men's and women's contests of the entire 2023-24 campaign.
Under Pointer's tutelage, point guards Mya Petticord and Lisa Thompson reached new heights in their first seasons with RU. Petticord ranked third on the team with 10.2 points per game and netted double figures in nine contests, including a six-game stretch at the end of December into January. She also sat fourth on the team with 44 assists and recorded 3+ helpers seven times. Thompson averaged 6.7 points and recorded 10+ points in nine contests. She dished out two or more assists 12 times during her rookie campaign.
During the 2022-23 season, Pointer helped Washington lay a strong foundation for the Scarlet Knights. She aided in guided the team to reach its 1,000th win in program history, with a victory over Minnesota (Jan. 12). RU became the 22nd Division I team and the third squad in the Big Ten to reach the milestone.
Pointer helped freshman guard Kaylene Smikle, as she was named to the All-Big Ten Second Team (Media & Coaches) in addition to the All-Freshman team (Media & Coaches). Smikle also collected three Big Ten Freshman of the Week honors, the most in program history. Under Pointer's tutelage, Smikle became Rutgers’ all-time leading freshman scorer, ending the season with 573 points to outdo the past high of 536 points. She is the third freshman in program history to amass 500+ points.
Smikle paced the team with 17.9 points per game and averaged 19.5 points in Big Ten play. She was the only Scarlet Knight to net 20+ points in a game this season and has accomplished the feat 15 times, including versus 12 Big Ten opponents. She led Big Ten freshman across the league in double-digit scoring. The Farmingdale, New York product also paced the team with 56 three-pointers and 69 steals to rank top-10 in the conference in both categories.
Pointer, to this day, is the Scarlet Knights' all-time assists leader and runner-up in career steals. As a player from 1997-2001, Pointer led Rutgers to the 2000 Final Four, the hallmark of a 128-game career that produced program-record totals of 839 assists and 292 steals while scoring 1,456 points. Pointer was inducted into the Rutgers Athletics Hall of Fame in 2008, which was also her first year on the coaching staff that guided the Scarlet Knights to an NCAA Elite Eight, a Sweet 16, and a WNIT Championship during seven overall trips to the postseason.
Pointer proved instrumental in helping Rutgers land three top-five recruiting classes during her coaching tenure "On the Banks." She helped develop these groups of recruits into perennial contenders nationally and in the Big East. Pointer recruited seven eventual WNBA Draft picks during her 14 years as an assistant and coached two Big East Rookies of the Year and four Big East Defensive Players of the Year at Rutgers, as defense would become a trademark of the young coach's career following in Coach Stringer's footsteps.
Following a three-year career in the WNBA, Pointer entered the coaching profession as an assistant at Columbia from 2004-06, followed by an Atlantic 10 Championship year at Xavier in 2006-07 before the eight-year stint at Rutgers. Pointer was then hired at St. John's, where the Red Storm were ranked among the top-three defenses during her two seasons from 2015-17. She then served as an assistant at Northwestern in 2017-18 before landing her first head coaching job at Illinois-Chicago from 2018-22.
A four-year starter at Rutgers, Pointer became one of the top point guards in program history and in the Big East, where she was the only player in conference history to record 1,000 points, 700 assists, 500 rebounds, and 250 steals. She was the 1998 Big East Rookie of the Year and a two-time First Team selection. Pointer led her team to 10 wins in the NCAA tournament, earning two NCAA All-Tournament Team selections. She paced the Big East in assists twice. The WBCA and the Associate Press both placed her on their honorable mention All-America teams in consecutive seasons. As a senior, Pointer became the first player in Rutgers history to record a triple-double, a feat she would repeat three more times in 2000-01.
Pointer left Rutgers as the school's all time – men's or women's – leader in assists and steals. She still holds the NCAA tournament record for assists in a game, with 18 against Stephen F. Austin in 2001. She led the Scarlet Knights to unprecedented success in the NCAA tournament, where they won multiple games in three seasons. Twice they were eliminated by the eventual national champion, and once by the eventual runner-up. Pointer led the team to wins over No. 1 Tennessee and No. 2 UConn in 1998, helping Rutgers become the first unranked team to defeat both a No. 1 and a No. 2 team. The win over UConn snapped the Huskies' Big East record 47-game conference winning streak. Another upset followed in 2001, when Pointer and the Scarlet Knights handed top-ranked Notre Dame their first loss of the season in front of a record crowd at the Louis Brown Athletic Center. She graduated as the eighth all-time leading scorer and still has the top two single-season assist totals in program history.
Pointer earned her bachelor's degree in journalism and mass media from Rutgers in 2001, and received a master's degree in education administration and supervision from the school in 2003. She is married to Kwabena Yamoah and they are the proud parents of daughters, Nariah and Anaiah.
