Tracy Dildy returns for his second season at his alma mater as an assistant coach and recruiting coordinator for the UIC men's basketball program. One of the most respected assistants and recruiters in the college game for the past 18 years, Dildy has made a profound impact at every stop during his coaching career. In Dildy's first year back on the Flames' bench in 2007-08, the Flames won 18 games while advancing to the Horizon League semifinals for the first time since 2003-04. In 2006-07 Dildy served as an assistant head coach under Mike Davis at UAB, helping the Blazers ink a highly-touted class in his first and only year in Birmingham. Dildy spent the previous two years as an assistant at Ole Miss. There he helped assemble a 2005-06 class that ranked as high as No. 3 in the nation by recruiting publications. His efforts landed him a spot on Rivals.com's list of the Top 25 recruiters in the nation in June 2005. Prior to his two years in Oxford, Dildy spent a pair of seasons as the assistant head coach at Auburn. Dildy's first season saw the Tigers, who were predicted to finish last in the SEC in preseason polls that year, go 22-12 and make a run to the NCAA Tournament Sweet 16, where they fell by just one point to Carmelo Anthony and eventual national champion Syracuse. While at Auburn Dildy coached Marquise Daniels, currently in the NBA with the Indiana Pacers. From 1997 until 2002 Dildy made a tremendous mark at DePaul, where he worked as an assistant coach, the associate head coach and even grabbed the reigns of the Blue Demons as the acting head coach when Pat Kennedy took a leave of absence due to health reasons in 2001. During Dildy's tenure DePaul advanced to the second round of the 2002 NCAA Tournament and reached the quarterfinals of the 2001 NIT. At DePaul Dildy was the driving force behind four stellar recruiting classes that included the nation's top-ranked class in 2001 and the second-ranked class in 1999. There Dildy recruited and signed the likes of future NBA players such as Quentin Richardson, Bobby Simmons, Steven Hunter and Eddy Curry. Dildy came to DePaul following three seasons at Ball State from 1994-97. At Ball State Dildy recruited current Houston Rockets swingman Bonzi Wells, who was a two-time Mid-American Conference Player of the Year and the MAC's all-time leading scorer while playing for the Cardinals. Ball State also made the NCAA Tournament in 1995 with Dildy as an assistant. The start of Dildy's coaching career came at UIC during the 1990-91 campaign, when he served as a student assistant coach on Bob Hallberg's staff. After that season Dildy became a full-time assistant coach for the Flames from 1991-94, helping recruit three of UIC's all-time greatest players: Kenny Williams, Sherell Ford and Mark Miller. Dildy played point guard for the Flames from 1987-89, finishing his two-year UIC career with the eighth-most assists (260) in school history. A Chicago native, Dildy graduated from Martin Luther King High School on the city's South Side in 1985. At King he was an Honorable Mention All-American and All-State guard as a senior and a First Team All-City and All-State player as a junior under legendary head coach Landon "Sonny" Cox. During a senior campaign in which he averaged 15 points and eight assists per game, Dildy served as the floor general for a Jaguars squad that was USA TODAY's preseason No. 1 team in the nation. A 1991 graduate of UIC with a bachelor's degree in education, Dildy was inducted into the UIC Athletics Hall of Fame in 1995. He was also inducted into the State of Illinois Basketball Hall of Fame in 1997 and the Chicago Public League Hall of Fame in 1998. Dildy has a son, Devin, and a daughter, Tracie, and lives in Plainfield, Ill. |
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