Florida hired Rhode Island’s Tammi Reiss as the program’s next women’s basketball coach Monday, tasking her with rebuilding the least-accomplished program on campus.
Reiss, a three-time Atlantic 10 coach of the year, spent seven seasons with the Rams and led them to the NCAA Women’s Tournament for the first time in 30 years earlier this month. Rhode Island lost to Alabama in the opening round.
Nonetheless, the Rams won a school-record 28 games to go along with a share of the A-10 regular-season championship and the league tournament.
Reiss, 55, played alongside Dawn Staley at Virginia and appeared in three consecutive Final Fours (1990, 1991 and 1992), including the 1991 national title game. She was part of eight NCAA Women’s Tournament appearances as an assistant coach, including four at Syracuse, before arriving at Rhode Island.
She replaces Kelly Rae Finley, who was fired two weeks ago while the Gators were poised to miss the NCAA Tournament for the fourth consecutive year.
The 40-year-old Finley went 93-75 in five seasons in Gainesville, including 30-50 in Southeastern Conference play. She put together one of the program’s best collections of talent in recent years, with Liv McGill, Me’Arah O’Neal and Laila Reynolds giving the team three McDonald’s All-Americans in its starting lineup.
But the trio was unable to deliver enough wins in one of the country’s deepest leagues.
Reiss will try to revive women’s basketball at Florida, which is the only program on campus that has never won a conference title. The Gators have seemed reluctant to funnel as much money as SEC heavyweights LSU and South Carolina into a program that has provided little, if any, return on investment for decades.
Reiss, though, has a track record of building.
The Rams tripled their average attendance during her tenure and raised the program’s first three conference banners. Her overall record is 138-73, including 96 wins over the last four seasons. She twice set the program record for victories.
This story was originally published by the Associated Press.
