In the rafters of H&PE Arena in Houston rest gray satin banners trimmed in maroon commemorating Texas Southern University’s 22 men’s and six women’s postseason basketball tournament appearances. As the TSU women’s basketball head coach, Vernette Skeete has already completed part of her mission to restore the program to prominence.
Her pursuit to upgrade the Tigers from one of the Southwestern Athletic Conference’s bottom feeders to a contender didn’t happen overnight. Skeete, who is in her third season at TSU, finished 9-49 overall (7-28 SWAC) in her first two seasons. Now, as Texas Southern (14-14 overall, 13-4 SWAC) prepares to face Prairie View (9-17 overall, 6-11 SWAC) on Saturday in its regular-season finale, TSU sits 1.5 games behind Southern for first place in the conference, despite being predicted to finish ninth in preseason projections.
The last time TSU notched a winning record was the 2019-20 campaign, the first season of Naismith Basketball Hall of Famer Cynthia Cooper-Dyke’s second stint leading the program. The team’s most recent regular-season title was 2013, while its last SWAC tournament title came in 2017. Still, Skeete believes her program hasn’t done anything special.
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“I hear a lot of people feeling like we [Tigers] have arrived,” Skeete told Andscape. “But it doesn’t feel like we’ve done anything until we get to a place where we’re winning SWAC [regular-season titles] or we’re in a [SWAC] championship.”
On the court, Skeete runs a scheme that requires good spacing and constant cutting in a system where all five players are prepared to score at any moment when their number is called. But Skeete’s ultimate vision in her pursuit for greatness extends beyond orchestrating the proper rotations.
“I teach them [players] to be a stronger version of themselves,” Skeete said. “I don’t allow them to shut up and dribble, and I don’t let them slack on their goals. I teach them to be free. I want them to always have their crowns on so that they remember what they are capable of as Black women.”
With freedom comes accountability. When the season began, Skeete spoke with each player on the roster — one that includes two graduate students, four seniors, four juniors and three sophomores — about their on- and off-the-court goals, part of their daily process to build trust and compete for a SWAC championship. However, even with measures for success in place, adversity has hit: Since Texas Southern won its first 11 SWAC games, the Tigers have lost four of their last six against teams they defeated in January.
“It has been a humbling experience for us,” said sophomore guard Aylasia Fantroy, one of TSU’s top scorers this season after spending her freshman season at Ohio University. “We have to stay locked in with what [Coach] Skeete is telling us if we want to accomplish our goals.”
It’s one of the sole reasons why Skeete constantly harps on her players about doing the little things and not accepting anything less, even when it makes them uncomfortable.
Skeete was strategically groomed for her TSU coaching journey, one that encompassed a persistent desire to learn from some of the sport’s most acclaimed coaches.
Skeete started her coaching career at Malone High School in Florida, her alma mater, five days after graduating from Alcorn State University with a psychology degree and fresh off a SWAC title in 2005 under legendary head coach Shirley Walker. However, Skeete never envisioned leading her own program.
The former point guard credits phone calls of wisdom from Chris Obert, a basketball coach at Cottondale High School in Florida. She also extracted knowledge from serving as an assistant under multiple noteworthy Power Four coaches. They include retired Miami women’s basketball coach Katie Meier, former Marquette coach Carolyn Kieger, who now coaches at Penn State, retired Illinois coach Nancy Fahey and retired Naismith Basketball Hall of Famer Gary Blair, who spent 19 of his 37 college basketball seasons coaching at Texas A&M.
“The journey is based on the people you’re journeying with,” Skeete said. “When I was 7 years old, God whispered a phrase to me and said, ‘Where could wisdom be found?’ My whole life, I’ve just searched for information, and the rest was history.”
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It has made all the difference for Skeete, who Blair described as a “spunky” assistant who “feared no one.” Although Skeete spent only one season under Blair due to his coaching retirement, the 79-year-old knew Skeete would be a great head coach based on her ability to establish a rapport with players, as well as her leadership as a former point guard.
“I don’t hire anyone to be a career assistant,” Blair said. “I’d seen [Skeete] on the recruiting trail for a number of years. She was always one of those go-getters who had great communication skills. … Most point guards go into coaching, and I’ve had some good ones. They do the little things right, take care of their teammates and nothing happens on the court without them signaling for it. …You choose your point guards and your assistants, those who can take responsibility. Skeete does that.”
However, with the transfer portal and top-dollar NIL deals in today’s college sports landscape, Blair said Skeete’s biggest challenge will be retaining her players from more competitive leagues, finding the “diamond in the rough” type players within the Texas market and then meeting them where they are.
“Kids today are not willing to wait for tomorrow,” Blair said. “Getting some of those kids who have gotten tired of sitting on the bench at Power Four schools who bring in experience – that’s the home run. Then you have to know how to coach them. Can they take you getting on to them? When practice is over, can you love them? Do you know who their mom and dad is, what type of family were they raised in? That’s what you need in our business. She has the ability to find those players and give them an opportunity.”
Meier, who met Skeete on the AAU circuit, knew Skeete was going to be one of her assistants and a head coach one day from their first phone call – prior to even meeting her.
At Miami, Skeete served as the Hurricanes’ coordinator of basketball operations during the 2009-10 season before adding assistant coaching duties from 2010 to 2012. During the three-year span, Miami went 76-25 and played in the 2010 WNIT Finals, as well as notched back-to-back NCAA tournament appearances the next two seasons.
While the wins were great, Meier recalled Skeete’s passion to connect with players in the locker room after a loss revealed her assistant’s true spirit for coaching.
“If there was something I couldn’t get across to my players, Skeete could,” Meier said. “She would talk to them like a disappointed grandmother. She made [the message] feel personal and it resonated with them. … She has a gift of speech that connects with people.”
With Texas Southern’s rocky end in the back half of its February slate, Skeete finds herself channeling her coaching energy from her days as an assistant, as well as inspiration from her brother, to inspire the Tigers as the SWAC tournament approaches.
TSU sits in the top four in the SWAC in scoring offense (67.1 ppg) and field goal percentage (38.0), much of that due to the Tigers sitting second in offensive rebounds (16.1 per game) and third in assists per game (11.8).
Defensively, TSU sits atop the SWAC in blocked shots (4.71), first in defensive rebounds (26.4) and second in its opponents’ field goal percentage (39.0) but surrenders the 10th most points per game (69.1) in the conference.
In TSU’s three SWAC losses on the road to Southern (63-53), Grambling (71-46) and Alcorn (62-50), they were outscored in multiple quarters and committed a combined 65 turnovers that generated a combined 70 points.
Skeete compared the two-game Louisiana road trip to the “gladiator wars” and said her team felt like it was “invincible” from its flaws.
“We weren’t hungry, we were stubborn and we made emotional responses instead of basketball responses,” Skeete said. “We kept winning [other games] when we weren’t playing sharp. In the SWAC, players play with aggression. Think like old-age Detroit Pistons. They [Southern and Grambling] were scrappy. … We were out there in a fight and we got outmatched.
“Growing up around guys with my brother on the court, they wouldn’t let you play if you showed signs of weakness. I had to be tougher. … March Madness is not about coaches, it’s about the heart of those players who want to be champions. … They have to be ready to play, even in moments of struggle. If those losses don’t fuel them, we don’t deserve to win a championship.”
Courtlyn Loudermill, the North Texas transfer who leads the team in minutes and points per game, agreed.
“When I first came here, I was being kind of selfish and didn’t understand her standard,” she said. “But seeing how she has coached us, it has helped me in the long run.”
Skeete wants to bring more championship banners to Texas Southern while also building a legacy that extends far beyond the hardwood for herself and her players.
“I want to be the best version of myself. … Sometimes, I have to disconnect [from the outside world] because this process hasn’t been what it’s been to other people to me,” Skeete said. “I don’t judge off man’s level of achievement when you’re focused on greatness.
“Everybody can say, ‘good job,’ but I could be halfway jumping. The only person who really knows if I’m giving my all and if it is truly a great job is God. I don’t want to fail them [players] or God when those moments come.”