That last name — whether you are talking about the high school, college or pro ranks — is synonymous with “Play Good” basketball.
Tate is one of eight transfers on a Wright State women’s team that third-year head coach Kari Hoffman has revamped after just 12 victories over the past two seasons.
After the Raiders dismantled Division III Tiffin, 80-43, in Wednesday night’s exhibition game, Hoffman was pleased with the way her team was meshing going into tonight’s season opener at Southern Indiana and she said something she could not say the past two seasons:
“There’s a lot of skill on the floor.”
One of the more skilled players is the 5-foor-11 Tate, a grad transfer from Tiffin, which made Wednesday night’s rough-up of her old team a bit of a “bittersweet” affair she said afterward:
“I definitely miss the girls and the coaches there because I’ve had years of relationships with them.”
Over four seasons, she played 112 games for the Dragons, started 92 and scored 991 career points.
While those are impressive numbers, they make for just another sturdy branch in one of Ohio’s most impressive basketball family trees:
- Her dad, Jermaine Tate, was a 6-foot-9 standout at Ohio State for a season and a half, averaging 12.1 ppg through his first 43 games. But then a sudden heart ailment sidelined him for the rest of the 1996-97 season and the following year. Cleared medically after that, he transferred to Cincinnati and started the next two seasons, before his far-flung pro career took him to places like France, Croatia, Japan, the Rockford Lightning of the Continental Basketball Association, and the Harlem Globetrotters.
- Her eldest brother Jae’Sean is now in his fourth season with Houston Rockets. He made the NBA All-Rookie team in 2021 and last year agreed to a 3-year, $22.1 million contract. Before the NBA, he twice won All-Big Ten honors at Ohio State, scored 1,512 points for the Buckeyes and played professionally in Belgium and Australia
- Her brother Jalen was a 1,302-point career scorer a Northern Kentucky University, won numerous All-Horizon League honors -- including the league’s Defensive Player of the Year and Tournament MVP in 2020 – and has played professionally in Germany, Nicaragua, Mexico, Kosovo and, most recently, Israel, where he finally managed to flee the escalating war on a recent flight out of the country.
- And her sister Jocelyn is a 5-foot-10 junior transfer at Michigan State. She started all 37 games at Bowling Green last season and averaged 10.1 points and 6.1 rebounds. Last Thursday, she started for the Spartans and turned in a solid performance in a romp over Division II Davenport.
And that sets up an interesting matchup Sunday when Wright State travels to MSU for a 2 p.m. tipoff at the Breslin Center.
The game will pit sister against sister and, as she thought about it, Jada called that a likely “bittersweet moment,” as well.
Jada and Jocelyn teamed up at Pickerington Central High School to lead the Tigers to a state championship in 2018 and runner-up finish a year later.
“When you look at us, people say we’re twins,” Jada said with a smile. “She’s my best friend. To be truthful, I’m more excited to see her than play against her.”
The game presents their mom, Jenice, with her own dilemma.
“I don’t know whose side she’ll sit on, whose shirt she’ll wear or even how she’ll cheer,” Jada said.
After Wright State’s game Wednesday night, Jenice had some thoughts about how she’d face the family feud.
“Well, I’m definitely going to be wearing green,” she said with a grin.
She knows the primary color of both schools is green.
Other than that, she figures on wearing a shirt that’s more peace treaty than partisan:
“I think it will be something with both girls on the front…And on the back, it may just say ‘Tate.’”
‘She brings a steadiness to us’
Jada said while she got some initial interest from Division I schools while she was in high school, she’s an undersized inside player and no one offered her a scholarship.
Instead, she chose Tiffin and found a home.
While she said she felt some pressure in high school — “everyone knew the Tate name there,” — she said it was different at Tiffin: “Not a lot of the reporters or other people there knew much about my family’s basketball history and that gave me the green light to just be me. I was able to just play hard and do what I do.”
Hoffman, who coached Tiffin’s Great Midwest Athletic Conference (GMAC) rival Cedarville before coming to WSU in May of 2021, noted one thing (well, actually two) that she did: “She beat us a couple of times.”
Although Cedarville had an impressive 19-6 season in 2020-21, two of the losses were to Tiffin. In one, Tate had 12 points and a game-high 12 rebounds, In the other, she again scored 12 and added seven boards.
After Tate got her sports management degree at Tiffin and entered the transfer portal, Hoffman was interested in her. And vice versa.
For Tate it was a chance to finally play Division I basketball.
“I feel like Coach Kari and her staff have a lot of trust in me and how I will perform,” she said.
Hoffman agreed: “She just brings a steadiness to us. You know what you’re going to get from her every day, every time she’s on the floor.”
‘Motivation’
Jenice Tate believes the family name is a source of “motivation”, not pressure for Jada and her siblings:
“They assist each other with their games. For Jocelyn and Jada, their brothers are always encouraging them, giving them little tidbits of information about what to do out there on the court.
Jenice, who played basketball at Toledo Central Catholic, said a lot of their family will be in East Lansing next Sunday for the Raiders’ game with Michigan State: “We’re all just hoping to have a great time and celebrate both of them.”
When Jada was asked what will happen if she comes barreling down the lane with the ball and suddenly there stands her sister, intent on defending the paint, she didn’t hesitate:
“Oh, I’m takin’ it right to her!”
As she thought about that scenario, she began to smile.
So much for bittersweet.
That would be so sweet.
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