Former Syracuse Assistant Tammi Reiss Leading Turnaround at Rhode Island

The Rhode Island women's basketball program was in need of a change. Something to spark a turnaround for a program that has lacked sustained success. The Rams have only made one NCAA Tournament (1996). Since that 1995-96 campaign, Rhode Island has only had three winning seasons. That includes four straight losing seasons before Tammi Reiss, the former Syracuse assistant, took over as the new head coach prior to the 2019-20 season.

Why would a program like that be attractive to Reiss? The answer, from her perspective, was more simple than it would appear on the surface.

"I was ready," Reiss said. "I felt like my time as an assistant, I was getting older so number one, I really felt finally that I was ready to run a program. All aspects of a program. So I started looking. Number two, I looked at Rhode Island because I wanted to stay east coast and I wanted to be in a good conference. I thought the Atlantic 10 was a very good conference that I was familiar with. It was located close to my home because I needed to be close to my family as I'm getting older and they're getting older. The third thing was it was a dead program. There was nowhere to go but up. I was ready to build something the way I wanted to build it. The most important component and the fourth component was the administration.

"When I met with Thorr Bjorn (Director of Athletics), our vision, everything that was important to either one of us we shared in common. It was like he could finish my sentences and I could finish his sentences. We were on the same page. He really had faith in me and I loved him to death. I was looking at those four factors that were important to me. It just so happened that this job opened up and it was the right fit for me. That's why I took the job."

Prior to being named head coach at Rhode Island, her first head coaching gig, she was an assistant at Syracuse under Quentin Hillsman. Hillsman has built the Syracuse program into a winner. A team that went to the National Championship game a few years ago, wins 20 games virtually every season and is always in the NCAA Tournament conversation. That was not the case before he took over, as the Orange women's program was in a similar state as Rhode Island. A dead program without a lot of past success.

Hillsman built Syracuse in his image and it has worked. Syracuse had only three NCAA Tournament berths prior to Hillsman's arrival with zero wins. Since he was hired in 2006, Syracuse has 13 straight winning seasons, eight NCAA Tournament appearances and nine tournament wins. Reiss is looking to build something similar and learned a lot during her time with the Orange.

"Being under coach Q, I learned a lot," Reiss said. "Especially from a scheme standpoint. I wasn't quite ready when I got to Syracuse. All aspects of the program, but most of all it was in game management. Schemes and x's and o's, I learned a lot from both Q and Vonn (Read). Especially defensively. Never been a zone coach, never liked it. We don't play a lot of it here, but I did put the zone in this year. I call it the Cuse 2-3. And his pressing packages, Q and Vonn's pressing packages. I have them under my belt now. I feel very comfortable in presses and zones defensively.

"Offensively, they were just two very good x's and o's coaches. I learned a lot from them. I thank Q for giving me the opportunity for bringing me back home and giving me the opportunity to work with some great people. Kids especially. That first year at Syracuse was one of my best years of coaching with that crew that went to the Final Four. I just hit it off with those kids. They were absolutely phenomenal."

Reiss says she stays in touch with many of those players from that team, and remembers her time at Syracuse as four of her favorite years as a basketball coach.

She arrived at Rhode Island prior to the 2019-20 season and led the Rams to a 13-16 record. That may not seem like much in vacuum, but some context sheds light on how impressive that actually was. It was the first double digit win season for Rhode Island since 2015-16 and the most wins in a single season since 2014-15. The Rams won 17 games total in the three seasons prior to Reiss' arrival.

"I knew my first year, with the roster that we had, it was a really set your culture year," Reiss said. "Not just on the court but in every aspect of the program. From off the court, the culture, the classroom. I knew the first year it was let's implement the process and our whole staff was committed to that. Let's just get these kids doing the right thing the right way. We're not focused on result oriented the first year. Really it was set the culture and set that strong foundation. We improved a lot of different areas with what we had."

There was hope. There was a direction. Then the pandemic hit and interrupted the process. The offseason was different. Training camp was different. Suddenly Reiss had yet another challenge while trying to build her program. One that was completely unforeseen and out of her control.

"We knew we had talented kids in the system that sat our first year," Reiss said. "They transferred in, they had to sit, we knew what was coming. We did not know that the pandemic would hit, we would have no summer, no fall, and then we would be riddled with injuries when we started. Our starting five, we never got healthy up until our first game. They never played together. We had concussions, we had hamstrings."

Rhode Island started this season 0-4. Still, Reiss saw promise and trusted the culture she was developing within the program.

"We had some bad luck to start," Reiss said. "It wasn't, oh we're 0-4. No, we just had to get healthy and develop chemistry. We had never played together before. I had seven new faces. I have five new starters together. When you look at that, you can't lose faith. You can't lose hope. I knew once we got healthy and could practice together, develop some chemistry, we would be just fine."

Just fine indeed. Rhode Island has won eight of 10 games since that start and are currently one game back of second place in the Atlantic 10. It may seem to be a bit ahead of schedule to those on the outside, but Reiss said the program goal was be near the top of the conference in year two competing for an Atlantic-10 title.

Mission accomplished. Rhode Island is 8-3 in conference play with five games remaining. It will be tough to catch first place Dayton, who is 9-0 in the Atlantic 10. But they look like they will finish no worse than fourth. That is quite the job in year two considering the history.

Reiss would love to mirror the success that Hillsman has had at Syracuse, building them into a perennial contender, and appears to be well on her way. The former Orange assistant says she never misses a game when Syracuse plays. Most of that roster includes players she helped recruit, so she enjoys watching their success.

Given her ties to Syracuse, should we expect an Orange, Rams nonconference matchup in the future?

"You've got to give me a couple more years of recruiting," Reiss said. "I've got to find a center that can matchup with 6-7 (Kamilla) Cardoso, because she's a beast. A lot of coaches are looking for that, right? I know Syracuse has money, but Q's going to have to pay me to come up there. It's just a credit to them. They keep reloading. They've got a beautiful team up there. Give me a year or two and I can get some talent in here and I'm ready. We can at least give them a good game in the Dome, and I can make some money off of that."

Add us as a preferred source on Google