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Photo courtesy Duke University.<\/p>\n
Taina Mair\u2019s collegiate basketball career ended on March 29 when she and her team, the Duke Blue Devils, lost to the eventual champs from UCLA. But, there\u2019s more to her story: The 22-year-old Fields Corner native\u2014 who got her start shooting hoops on the courts around Dorchester and also starred as a freshman at Boston College \u2014 is now widely seen as a likely prospect for the WNBA, which will hold its annual draft next Monday (April 13).<\/p>\n
\u201cWhatever opportunity I get, whether that\u2019s in the WNBA, if I get drafted or called up to go to a training camp, I just want to take every single opportunity and make the most out of it,\u201d Mair said in an interview last week. \u201cPlaying overseas, that\u2019s always been something I wanted to do. I\u2019m open to any opportunities that come my way.\u201d<\/p>\n
That bring-it-on attitude has served this talented young woman well in a journey that started on Westville Street, steps away from UP Academy.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey had a whole field, basketball court, baseball field, playground, everything. When they used to get out of school, I would go up there and play basketball.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fueled by Papa Rino\u2019s pepperoni pizza and Hawaiian Fruit Punch, the young Taina spent many afternoons playing \u00a0with her younger brother Talik and looking up to her older sister, Trayana.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy sister was in high school; she went to English High. When it was halftime, I would go out on the court and try to shoot and do all that stuff,\u201d Mair said in the interview with The Reporter. \u201cI just really wanted to be like my sister; that\u2019s really how it all started, and eventually my mom put me in basketball programs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mair learned the fundamentals from the No Books No Ball program, which offers basketball training and essential life skills to kids ages 7 to 17. She attended Mozart Elementary in Roslindale and then Roxbury Prep for middle school.<\/p>\n
As 8th grade came to an end, Mair\u2019s club coach from the MassRivals presented her with a new opportunity: Holderness Academy, a boarding school in Plymouth, NH.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t really want to go,\u201d she said. \u201cI didn\u2019t want to live somewhere in the woods in New Hampshire. That\u2019s not how I grew up. It was completely different from what I knew.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Above, Taina Muir celebrated her MVP performance in the 2026 ACC championship with her mom Mercy Pineda. Photo courtesy Duke.<\/p>\n
After one year, Mair transferred to the Brooks School in Andover, where, as a senior, she averaged a triple-double and earned Massachusetts Gatorade Player of the Year honors.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The collegiate game was next, and the 5-foot-9 point guard had\u00a0 committed to play basketball at Boston College when she was a junior in high school.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think playing in the Power Five was something I really wanted to do, and it was something I knew I could achieve,\u201d Mair said. \u201cI just wanted to play the highest level of basketball, and BC offered me that.\u201d<\/p>\n
In her only season at the Heights, Mair was the backbone of the Eagles squad. She started in all 33 games, averaging a team-high 36.6 minutes per outing, finishing second in scoring and steals, and tied for fourth in rebounding.<\/p>\n
She also set the single-season freshman assists record with 217, the second highest single-season mark in program history, earning her a spot on the ACC All-Freshman Team.<\/p>\n
But her college path reflected that of her high school one \u2013 always on the move \u2013 and at the end of the season, Mair entered the NCAA transfer portal.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt first, I didn\u2019t want to leave BC. I didn\u2019t want to leave Boston or Massachusetts\u2026 I didn\u2019t want to leave my friends, my teammates, but eventually, sitting down with my AAU coach and my mom, reflecting on the pros and the cons of staying and leaving, eventually the pros\u00a0 started to outweigh the cons.\u201d<\/p>\n
She added: \u201cA lot of schools were calling me, the ones you dream of. For me, it was super overwhelming, but eventually I narrowed it down to three schools. I took three visits: Duke, Texas, and Maryland. All those schools are great in different aspects, but when it came to Duke, every single box got checked.<\/p>\n
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\u201cAcademically, they are an amazing school, that degree holds weight, and basketball for them was on the rise.\u201d<\/p>\n
Duke head coach Kara Lawson won her over, she said. \u201cCoach Kara had a vision for Duke. She was super business-oriented, which I liked; she didn\u2019t promise me anything. She said this program is going to be something in a few years, you can be the start of that, the foundation, and I\u2019m going to develop you to be a great point guard.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe made no promises to me. She said, \u2018You have to earn everything, you have to work super hard.\u2019 That really spoke to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mair took a minute to reflect on the beginning of her journey from Westville Street to Durham, North Carolina.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u201cA lot of athletes who come out of Dorchester, who I know, are all super hard-working,\u201d she said. \u201cI saw them when I was in high school. I was working out outside at Fields Corner at the basketball court. Everybody was outside working out, and we did it together constantly.\u201d<\/p>\n
That sense of determination and discipline has defined the way she describes herself as an athlete:<\/p>\n
\u201cI work super hard. Before practice, I\u2019m in the gym getting a workout in, at night, I\u2019m always going back to shoot. On the court, I\u2019m willing to do anything. I\u2019m willing to work hard for my team to win, whether I have to score, rebound, pass the ball, or do anything. I\u2019m willing to do whatever it takes to win.\u201d<\/p>\n
And that\u2019s why, she said, she and Lawson work so well together. \u201c[Coach Kara] is a tough coach to play for. She coaches with tough love, emphasize the tough,\u201d Mair said, laughing. \u201cShe\u2019s going to give it to you how it is; she\u2019s super honest and direct. I think not a lot of people can play for her in that sense because you have to be able to take harsh criticism.\u201d<\/p>\n
Players like Mair often seem to thrive under that kind of pressure.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m always willing to be challenged by anybody, and I\u2019m willing to take on the challenge head on. With her, she understood that about me, so she challenged me constantly. Almost every day, she challenged me with something new.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a post-game press conference on March 29, Lawson praised the impact that Mair and her teammate Ashlon Jackson have had on the program.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe sadness, of course, at this time of year is when it\u2019s your seniors\u2019 final game and you know that you\u2019re not going to get a chance to coach them again. That\u2019s where it\u2019s emotional, that\u2019s where it\u2019s heavy, but these two have changed our program,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u201cThey have been the most influential class in our program since I\u2019ve been here. They changed the tide of our program and turned us into champions.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/PeopleDukeMair1-763x1024.jpg\")
Duke wins the 2026 Ally ACC Women\u2019s Basketball Tournament at Gas South Arena in Duluth, GA. Sunday, March 8th, 2026. (Photo by Andrew Hancock\/ACC).<\/p>\n
In three seasons, Mair started in 107 games, totalling 3,188 minutes, and averaging 29.8 points per game. And she graduates in seventh place in career assists in ACC history.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really one of the more underrated careers in ACC history when you think about it,\u201d Lawson said. \u201cWhen you look at the other names on the list and the accolades and the publicity of those players, and you look at Mair and Mair\u2019s height in comparison to the other names on that list, she\u2019s had an incredible career in our league, 7th all-time. It speaks to her consistency, her playmaking ability,\u201d said Lawson.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI talk about all the time, she\u2019s such a winner. She\u2019s got three conference championships, an ACC tournament MVP, a Sweet 16, and Elite 8. It\u2019s hard to find a player with the consistency that she\u2019s shown. A great, great player.\u201d<\/p>\n
For her part, Mair lamented the loss to UCLA. \u201cThey\u2019re super experienced, they made a lot of adjustments, and they knew what it took to win, to get to the Final Four. We hadn\u2019t learned that yet, and I think we learned\u00a0 last Sunday. You have to play a whole great game to be able to get to a final four.\u201d<\/p>\n
While her time at Duke is near its end, she described the experience as \u201ca dream come true, to say the least.\u201d<\/p>\n
When asked if the WNBA was in the card,s she said: \u201cI hope so. I really do hope so.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo courtesy Duke University. Taina Mair\u2019s collegiate basketball career ended on March 29 when she and her team,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":570553,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[99,434],"class_list":["post-570552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=570552"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570552\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/570553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=570552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=570552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=570552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}