No stranger to the Midwest, Horizon League or head coach Mike Davis, Tracy Dildy just finished his fourth season as a Titan assistant coach in 2021-22.
Dildy worked with coach Davis at UAB, served as head coach of Chicago State for eight seasons and played and coached at his alma mater UIC, along with coaching stops at Mississippi, Auburn, DePaul and Ball State.
He was the head coach at Chicago State from 2010-2018 and also served as the athletic director in his final season. He guided the Cougars to their first-ever Division I postseason appearance as the team won the Great West Conference and earned a bid to the CIT in 2013.
During his time, he coached 13 All-League honorees, two student-athletes earned Newcomer of the Year and one tabbed the Defensive Player of the Year
In 2013-14, Dildy’s squad earn the third seed in its first year in the Western Athletic Conference Tournament. Chicago State’s 13 victories on the season were the fourth most by a CSU team during the Cougars’ 30-year Division I existence. Chicago State’s eight conference wins tied for the most in a season during that same time period. The Cougars’ marquee victory in 2013-14 came at home over eventual WAC Tournament Champion and NCAA participant New Mexico State. CSU topped the Aggies 88-81 for Chicago State’s first ever win over a team with a top 100 RPI ranking.
Dildy made history at Chicago State during the 2012-13 season by guiding the Cougars to the program’s first ever NCAA Division I championship and postseason berth. The Cougars defeated Houston Baptist in the 2013 Great West Conference Tournament Championship and earned a berth in the CollegeInsider.com Tournament. The Cougars earned a wealth of honors during season with Quinton Pippen earning Co-GWC Defensive Player of the Year honors and Nate Duhon taking home the GWC Newcomer of the Year Award. Duhon was the second consecutive Cougar to earn the honor after Jeremy Robinson won it in 2011-12. Matt Ross and Jamere Dismukes won All-GWC Honorable Mention accolades. The Cougars finished the 2012-13 season ranked seventh in the nation in steals with 9.4 per game.
The Cougars were seventh in the nation (9.4 per game) in steals in 2012-13 and eighth (8.7 per game) in 2013-14.
Dildy’s squads have also made major strides in the classroom. When Dildy took over the program, he inherited scholarship reductions and a postseason ban due to low Academic Progress Rate scores. Dildy wasted little time changing the culture of the program. In his first year on the job in 2010-11, Dildy compiled a 957 single-year APR. His 2011-12 single-year score was a perfect 1,000. It was the only perfect single-year score among Chicago’s five Division I men’s basketball programs in 2011-12. This helped bring his multi-year score in 2012-13 to 932, the highest in the history of the program.
Dildy built a reputation as an accomplished assistant and a respected recruiter before arriving at Chicago State in 2010. Dildy spent three years as the associate head coach and recruiting coordinator at UIC from 2007-10 before taking the job at Chicago State. During his tenure at the west side school, the Flames captured victories over BCS schools Vanderbilt, Georgia Tech and Oregon State in addition to winning 18 games and garnering a Horizon League Tournament semifinal appearance in 2007-08.
He was named the top mid-major assistant by Hoop Scoop in 2008, one of the top 25 mid-major assistant by CollegeInsider.com in 2009 and one of Hoop Scoop’s top 50 mid-major assistants in Basketball Times in April.
It was the second stint for Dildy with the Flames after serving as a student assistant coach during the 1990-91 season under former CSU head coach Bob Hallberg. Following that season, he became a full-time assistant at UIC from 1991-94 where he recruited UIC all-time greats Kenny Williams, Sherell Ford and Mark Miller.
Before returning to UIC in 2007, Dildy helped sign a high-touted recruiting class during his lone season as an assistant under coach Davis at UAB in 2006-07. He also spent four seasons as an assistant at two Southeastern Conference (SEC) schools – Ole Miss and Auburn. He helped assemble a nationally-ranked recruiting class for the 2005-06 season at Ole Miss that was rated as high as third by numerous recruiting publications and earned a spot on Rivals.com’s list of the Top 25 recruiters in the nation in June 2005.
While at Auburn, Dildy helped the Tigers post a 22-12 record during the 2002-03 season and advanced to the Sweet 16 of the 2003 NCAA Tournament where they fell to eventual national champion Syracuse and Carmelo Anthony by one point. In addition, he recruited NBA player Marquise Daniels.
Dildy enjoyed success at DePaul from 1997-2002 where he worked as an assistant coach, the associate head coach and even served as an acting head coach in 2001. He helped the Blue Demons advance to the quarterfinals of the NIT in 2001 and reached the second round of the 2002 NCAA Tournament. Dildy spearheaded four huge recruiting classes for DePaul, which included the nation’s top-ranked class in 2001 and the second-best class in the country in 1999 in addition to signing future NBA players Quentin Richardson, Bobby Simmons, Steven Hunter and Eddy Curry.
Before his stint at DePaul, Dildy spend three seasons as an assistant coach at Ball State from 1994-97, helping the Cardinals reach the NCAA Tournament in 1995.
The Chicago native played point guard and lettered for two seasons at UIC from 1987-89 and finished his collegiate career with the eighth-most assists (260) in school history. He was inducted into the UIC Athletics Hall of Fame in 1995.
He graduated from King High School in 1985, where he was coached by Public League coaching legend Landon “Sonny” Cox. He earned Honorable Mention All-America and All-State honors as a senior in which he averaged 15 points a game for the Jaguars. King was the preseason No. 1 team in the nation by USA Today during Dildy's senior year. Dildy also garnered First Team All-City and All-State accolades in his junior campaign. He entered the State of Illinois Basketball Hall of Fame in 1997 and the Chicago Public League Hall of Fame in 1998.
Dildy earned a bachelor’s degree in Education from UIC in 1991.
He has a son, Devin, and a daughter, Tracie.
