Georgia State University Athletics

Georgia native Tia Lewis-Taylor joined the Georgia State women's basketball staff as an assistant coach in May 2022.

She came to Georgia State after one season as an assistant coach at Georgia Southern, where she helped the Eagles to 18 wins in 2021-22, the most for the program in more than a decade. The team finished the 2021-22 season ranked fifth out of 348 NCAA Division I program in both scoring offense (79.3 ppg) and rebounding offense (46.4 rpg). The rebounding average was the fifth best in a single season in school history. Lewis-Taylor primarily worked with and helped develop the post players while focusing on rebounding. During the 2020-2021 season, the post players average 9.9 rebounds.  

Lewis-Taylor helped develop sophomore Terren Ward. She was not only named a second-team All-Sun Belt Conference selection, but she was the inaugural recipient of the Sun Belt Sixth Woman of the Year award. Lewis-Taylor also helped with the development Tsubasa Nisbet, who has inked a contract to play professionally in her home country of New Zealand. 

A native of Poulan, Ga., Lewis-Taylor entered collegiate coaching after a highly successful stint as a high school coach in the Georgia prep ranks. She became the head coach at Turner County High School in Ashburn, Ga., in 2018, leading the Titans to the Sweet 16 in her first year and then to the State Final Four in 2020. She moved to Fitzgerald High School for one season and guided the Purple Hurricane to the state playoffs in 2020-21 before going to Georgia Southern.
 
Lewis-Taylor started coaching at the high school level as the head varsity girls basketball coach at Denbigh High School in Newport News, Va., in 2015 before returning home to Georgia.
 
After an all-state playing career at Worth County High School in Georgia, Lewis-Taylor became a standout as a college player at UCF and then Old Dominion. She was the Conference USA Freshman of the Year in 2007-08 at UCF and then earned all-conference honors twice while finishing her career at ODU. As a freshman at UCF, rebounding was Lewis-Taylor's specialty as she finished second in the nation in rebounds while leading the country in double doubles. In her four seasons, Lewis-Taylor scored 1,624 points and grabbed 1,124 rebounds. Ironically her career high came against Georgia State, she went for 30 points against the Panthers on January 14, 2012.
 
She played professional basketball overseas in Slovakia, Bulgaria and Israel.
 
Lewis-Taylor, whose given name is Quintierra, graduated from Old Dominion with her bachelor's degree in recreation and tourism studies in 2012, and while playing overseas, she earned her master's degree in sports administration from Liberty in 2014.

She and her husband, Derrick Taylor, have one daughter, Chloe Rose.