Five-star basketball recruits and twin sisters Mia and Mya Pauldo used FaceTime daily after practices when Mia traveled to Colorado Springs, Colorado, for five days in June to participate in the USA Under-18 trials while Mya stayed home in Paterson, New Jersey, to play for her dad’s AAU basketball team, the HUrban Legends of Jersey. In the first few hours of Mia Pauldo’s return to their Paterson home, the conversations quickly turned into an argument.
The dispute wasn’t because of an unsteady relationship but rather the result of separation
anxiety.
“I didn’t have my partner,” Mya Pauldo said. “I was missing my sister. We cannot be separated like that again.”
The Pauldo twins, self-branded as the Twin Back Court or TBC, have firmly established and
embraced their role as a united force in women’s basketball. The University of Tennessee commits are among the nation’s top 100 recruits in the Class of 2025. The Morris Catholic High School seniors open their season Saturday seeking a third-straight New Jersey state title.
Mia Pauldo (left) and Mya Pauldo (right) played in the Ta’Quan Zimmerman Elite 20 Invitational at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut on Aug. 10.
Grace Hand/Gracehandmedia
Mia and Mya Pauldo don’t take their achievements lightly, and their ambition to succeed comes from a desire to help their family. The twins have dealt with the deaths of several friends. According to their father, D.J. Pauldo, “no less than 30” of his students have died during his 25 years of teaching in Paterson.
“Where we come from in Paterson, New Jersey, kids don’t get the opportunities we get, but even
[with] us getting certain opportunities, we still ain’t out the ‘hood yet,” Mya Pauldo said. “We just want our family to be in a better situation, better environment. For the generations ahead, we want them to come into the world to a better situation.
“Even [for] our family now, to have a better life than we have right now. They are the main
reasons why we do this. We want to make it out for them.”
Their parents, D.J. and Filisha, also have two sons, Dahmari, 9, and Daizon, 23, and another
daughter, Nyasia, 17. D.J., Pauldo, who played basketball at Shaw University, coached former and current NBA athletes, including NBA champion J.R. Smith and Golden State Warriors forward Kyle Anderson.
About 11 years ago, when his twin daughters were in third grade, D.J. started a basketball team and training business in his yard and garage. Now painted purple and yellow in homage to the Twin Back Court, they have become his daughters’ daily training area after school.
D.J. Pauldo’s sister and his wife coached the youth team initially. After a few games, the coaches invited him to watch his daughters play against 11-year-old opponents on a Sunday evening in Westwood, New Jersey.
It’s a day he says he will never forget.
“I was like, ‘cool,’ ” he said in response to the invite. “I will never forget the ball tip.
Mimi [Mia] got it, whap, whap cross[over], passed to Mya. Mya dribbled, [took] bones [ankles],
then did a layup and I’m like, ‘I got two of ’em.’
“That was the last time my wife and sister ever coached them. I said, ‘I’ll do both.’ “
We just keep it a buck, whether negative or positive, like tough love. Whether that’s with [school] work, working out, [or] getting up early.
— Mya Pauldo
With coaching no longer her responsibility, his wife focused elsewhere. She has been the
self-proclaimed “organizer” as the girls’ dietitian and hair stylist for 18 years, and says she “doesn’t trust nobody else” with their hair.
Mia Pauldo remembers her parents telling them to “do everything with confidence” in their childhood extracurricular activities such as modeling, gymnastics, practicing jazz, acting and dancing.
“Their confidence pushes us to keep everything going,” their mother said. “It keeps me motivated as their mom to have the confidence to walk with my head up [and say], ‘Yup, those are my daughters.’ “
The twins’ father also praises them. “I think they’ve both been proactive in marketing and promoting themselves just by being themselves. Their brand is them,” he said. “Every time we turn around, every event we go to, they end up being correspondents, people give them a mic, and then they interview people and stuff like that. Because just the energy they bring and their maturity has always been above their years.”
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Tennessee assistant coach Gabe Lazo, who as the lead recruiter for the twins, noticed
their positivity and energy during a recruiting trip to Knoxville, Tennessee, in June. He also noted the Pauldos’ “infectious” family dynamic and “enjoyed getting that feel in person.”
The twins plan to study a business-related subject at Tennessee.
“We want to be our own bosses, and we want to control our whole situation, our own business,”
Mia Pauldo said.
They won the Overtime Select league championship in September as players for the Double Dynasty team. Overtime Select is a new eight-team league composed of the top
high school girls basketball players ages 15-18 in the country that develops the players as leaders and helps them to build their personal brands. The 18-year-olds also star in their own
Overtime-produced reality series, No Limits with Mia & Mya Pauldo.
Their younger brother Dahmari can’t restrain himself from telling others that his older sisters are famous — their Twin Back Court Instagram page has nearly 37,000 followers. The twins see a direct relationship between leading at home and in the sport.
“Just the little stuff like telling [Dahmari] to brush his teeth or go to sleep early,” Mia Pauldo said of how setting an example at home develops them as leaders in women’s basketball. “That little stuff he doesn’t think matters now, but he’ll really pay attention to it in the future because it will help him in the long run.
“When he sees us being leaders to other people, he looks up to that and says, ‘Oh, my big sisters
are them.’ ”
Mya Pauldo (left) and Mia Pauldo (right) participated in many extracurricular activities from ballet to baseball to taekwondo.
D.J. Pauldo
While the spotlight often shines on the twins, the notoriety doesn’t consume them. Morris Catholic coach Billy Lovett guided them during their first three years at the school, where the team won two consecutive state titles in 2023 and 2024 before Lovett left in July to become the assistant coach at Siena College in New York.
“We never would have achieved the type of success that we had if they weren’t the type of people that they were,” Lovett said. “They were never about ‘me, me, me,’ even though all the cameras and the attention they received were everywhere. Home or on the road, people wanted interviews [and] different things wherever we went. They never big-timed any of their teammates, which was crucial to being as successful as we were.”
Lovett believes the twins’ talent speaks for itself. He’s hopes their yearning to connect with younger fans can help continue to attract fans to women’s basketball. Viewership of the 2024 women’s college national championship game increased by over 288% compared to the audience who watched the 2022 national championship game, according to Nielsen. Lovett noted the legacy they are building in New Jersey as school ambassadors and honor roll students.
Allan Houston, Tennessee’s all-time leading scorer, first noticed the twins when they coached male high school athletes during the SLAM Summer Classic at Rucker Park in New York in mid-August.
Upon hearing of their commitment to his alma mater, the two-time NBA All-Star made his
presence known to the twins midway through their video interview with Andscape as the only way a Tennessee alum could.
“There’s only one orange,” Houston said.
“That big orange,” Mia Pauldo responded.
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Houston said that it’s “a great time and place to build [their] brand together.” He then asked them if they had considered attending separate schools.
They shook their heads “no” simultaneously.
“We always wanted to play together,” Mia Pauldo said. “I feel like that’s so cool. We spoke about being on TV together in college, and she dropped 20, I dropped 20, and we were both on the screen.”
They look forward to baking together on campus in Knoxville. They still have a year to watch their favorite scary movies, complete crossword puzzles and finish Dear Black Girl: How to Be True to You by Las Vegas Aces forward A’ja Wilson.
The Pauldos hosted the University of Tennessee coaching staff at their New Jersey home in mid-September.
D.J. Pauldo
Mia Pauldo exposed her tendency to add too much seasoning to food, so she leaves the cooking to her sister. On the court, Mya Pauldo is the point guard and her sister tends to operate from the wing.
Rahim Huland El, who was an assistant coach at Morris Catholic for three years before becoming head coach in July, said, “We hear about the Pauldo twins, [but] I never refer to them when interacting with them as ‘the twins.’ I really like to focus on understanding that
these two [sisters] are individual young ladies who have their own personalities, styles, strengths and weaknesses, but they complement each other so well. As a tandem, as they move
forward, it will make them that much stronger as leaders.”
Mia Pauldo described what she appreciates about her relationship with her sister. “Being real with each other, I would definitely say that keeping it 100 always. If one doesn’t like the outfit, we don’t let each other go, little stuff like that.”
Her sister said, “We just keep it a buck, whether negative or positive, like tough love. Whether that’s with [school] work, working out, [or] getting up early.”
Tennessee women’s basketball has won eight national championships, but has not reached the Final Four since 2008. While the twins hope to return the Lady Vols to championship contention, the next goal is to secure a third straight state title for the Morris Catholic Crusaders.
“It’s the cherry on top of their sundae now. This is their final season with us,” Kathy Smith,
the Morris Catholic dean of students, said. “Just watching them, they have a spirit about them that emanates. They are everything you’d want a student-athlete to be, a student to be or just a person to be. I’ve been in education for 30 years and I’ve never come across a Mia and Mya like this. I think they may just be that one in a million, or should I say two in a million.”
Joshua Heron is a freelance sports journalist dedicated to humanizing athletes through his storytelling. He was born in New York but considers himself a true “yaad man” because of his Jamaican upbringing. If you get to know him well enough, “Wah gwan” is likely to become a part of your vocabulary.