HBCU Basketball Coach Criticizes Student-Athlete Medical Care

Wins and losses are the record which players and coaches are judged by, but Prairie View A&M men’s basketball coach Byron Smith wants the public to realize what takes place behind the scenes at HBCU basketball programs.

Smith had a lot to say when it came to the type of medical care HBCUs were providing for their student athletes during a postgame interview at the end of January.

“These aren’t just jerseys and numbers. They’re someone’s son, someone’s brother, someone’s family. That has to matter,” Smith said.

Prairie View A&M University men’s basketball coach, Byron Smith’s full comments regarding Tai’Reon Joseph’s health, the sports medicine department and not needing public support.

He emphasized that the fanbase needs to support the university and the team first and foremost. https://t.co/slNLPYrUhT pic.twitter.com/Qb2xTXCJ0B

— Dorian Waller (@dorianwaller02) February 1, 2026

The jumping-off point for the comments came after the production of guard Tai’Reon Joseph was mentioned. Joseph was one of the best scorers in the country last season but hasn’t quite matched that same level of proficiency during the 2025-2026 campaign.

“Tai-Reon doesn’t just go from being one of the top scorers in the country to not scoring in double figures,” Smith deduced. “The kid has been hurt for a while now, and I don’t think we’ve done him a great service by not digging deeper into his injury.”

To Smith’s point, Joseph had an up and down January in the scoring department. In his last five games in the month, he scored 23 points, 0 points, 6 points, 15 points and 31 points respectively.

Tai’Reon Joseph is not moving well today. You can tell that the shoulder is still bothering him.

6 points on 2-for-9 shooting from the field with 4 minutes to play. Panthers down 89-68. They need to allow his shoulder to fully heal.

— Dorian Waller (@dorianwaller02) January 25, 2026

Joseph is playing for his sixth school in as many years during his college basketball journey. He started out with Austin Peay and transferred to Radford. After that, he played one season of junior college hoops, before transferring to Southern, then UTSA, and finally, Prairie View A&M.

Including a stint as the interim coach, Smith is currently in his 11^th season as head coach of the Panthers basketball program. He delved deeper into his thoughts about player safety.

“These young men put their bodies on the line every night, Smith said. “It’s not just tape and ice. It’s ab out compassion, diligence and doing the right thing even when it’s inconvenient.”

After calling out Prairie View A&M for not doing enough in the sport medicine realm, Smith eventually walked back the sharpness of his comments.

“Following our game against Texas Southern on January 31, I made inappropriate comments driven by frustration,” Smith communicated via a statement. “They do not reflect my respect for Prairie View A&M University, our athletics program, or the care our student-athletes receive. I apologize for my comments and will exercise better judgment moving forward.”

Byron Smith has led the Prairie View A&M Panthers to three regular season SWAC conference titles and led the program to the NCAA tournament during the 2018-2019 campaign.

HBCU basketball programs have seen this theme play out before. Howard University and former head coach Kevin Nickelberry found themselves embroiled in controversy in the 2010’s over a similar issue.

Ausar Madison and Kai Tease sued Nickelberry and the university on a couple of grounds, with one of them being that Nickelberry forced them both to play with a Jones fracture foot injury. Nickelberry allegedly threatened to publicly shame them if they didn’t suit up.