UF junior point guard Kiyomi McMiller, the transfer from Penn State, finished 12th in the nation in scoring last season at 21.4 points per game.
Unlocking the 'Key' to Winning
Monday, October 12, 2026 | Women's Basketball, Chris Harry
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By: Chris Harry, Senior Writer
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – For two months over the summer, the weight room in the Hugh Hathcock Basketball Complex was closed for repairs, so the men's and women's teams had to do their lifting in the south end zone of Ben Hill Griffin Stadium. The hallway leading to that weight room is lined with plaques representing each of the University of Florida's 21 sports and recognizes their respective championships.
The Gators women's basketball placard, unfortunately, hangs next to men's track and field, with its 12 NCAA and 14 Southeastern Conference titles. Kiyomi McMiller
"Ours is empty," UF junior guard Kiyomi McMiller said. "Yeah, we talked about it."
And, yeah, they're still reminded about it. Though both basketball squads are back in their home weight room, the UF women eat daily at the athletes' dining wall at the Heavener Football Training Center, where banners from each sport hang overhead in the atrium known as the Jeremy Foley Hall of Champions. They also include lists of those teams' crowns.
Again, only one of the flags is blank.
Enter Tammi Reiss, who in March was named the ninth coach in program history and every day dares her players to dream.
Reiss, once a first-team All-America guard alongside Dawn Staley at Virginia, got her first head-coaching post at Rhode Island in 2019. She inherited a program that had combined to win just 17 games the previous three seasons and built it into an eventual Atlantic 10 Conference champ — the Rams went 28-5 record last season, marking her fourth 20-win campaign in seven seasons — and reached just the second NCAA Tournament in school history.
"I know how to win," Reiss said.
Now, she's here and has every intention to bring those winning ways to the title-less Gators and their overhauled 2026-27 roster of 13 players (10 transfers, two freshmen, just one returnee), all of whom are thirsting for a taste of success. McMiller (first name pronounced "key-YO-me," but she goes by "Key") is one of the dozen UF newcomers, having played at two struggling Big Ten programs the last two seasons. Her familiarity with Reiss, though, is nothing new. The two have history.
Reiss was the first coach to offer McMiller a scholarship. That offer came long before McMiller blossomed into a McDonald's All American and top-25 national prospect. How long?
McMiller was in fifth grade.
"Being here, being with Coach Tammi, it's all come full circle for me now," she said. "It's like it was destined to be."
Now comes the hard part. The part where destiny leads to winning.
UF women's basketball has posted one winning record in SEC play the last 10 years, averaging just five league victories over that span. The Gators haven't won an NCAA Tournament game since 2014 and, basically, haven't been relevant in the conference (much less, nationally) since Carol Ross guided them to 10 NCAA berths over 11 seasons from 1993-2002.
In the transfer portal era, however, quick fixes are a thing. If Florida is truly a team on the rise, the supremely talented, high-scoring McMiller, a 5-foot-9 combo who will start at the point, figures to be a centerpiece of that ascension after averaging 21.6 points, 5.0 rebounds and 4.5 assists per game at Penn State last season.
"She's a great individual player," Reiss said of McMiller. "But coming here, we want her to have the kind of transformational year where she shows, 'Yes, I'm a great player, but I also can make people around me better and I can win.' I want her to experience that. I want her to know what the confetti feels like, 'cause there's no better feeling in the world then when you do something special with a team."
That challenge not only was put to McMiller, it drew her to the Gators.
"I've always wanted to help build up a program that is fighting and winning championships," she said. "Now, with Coach Tammi, it's a whole new start for both of us. We have a chance to build that legacy together."
PLAYING UP
Young Kiyomi was dribbling mini-basketballs around the house as far back as she can remember. She grew up in Silver Springs, Maryland. Mike McMiller, her father, coached the local junior college team and his daughter was a devoted attendee at practices and games.
"She was always asking when she'd get a chance to play," he recalled. 7-year-old Kiyomi being coached by her dad.
That first opportunity came in a church league. Kiyomi was in kindergarten, but even while competing against boys she played at a different level than the rest. She was scoring so often — and making it look so easy — some fans in the bleachers (i.e., the other parents) actually would boo, her father said.
In time, league organizers suggested Kiyomi take her game to the club level. As a fifth-grader, she played up three and four grades and competed against high school kids. And kept scoring. In bunches.
Her success against bigger and older players, keyed by her father's oversight as skills coach, gave her confidence to go on the attack.
"Having it be so tough at a young age made it easier for me over time," she said. "I had more knowledge of the game. I learned stuff quick and just picked stuff up faster than most."
Kids on the other teams couldn't believe someone so small was so good. They were even more amazed when they learned how young Kiyomi was.
"They'd ask, 'Are you in like the eighth grade or something?' " she said. "But I was in fifth."
Her club team played in an Under-17 event that was attended by a handful of college coaches. One of those was Reiss, who was then an assistant at Syracuse. When the McMillers came to campus for a camp, Reiss extended that first scholarship offer.
The trajectory all came to pass. As a high school sophomore at Darlington (S.C.) Trinity Collegiate School, McMiller averaged 27.1 points per game. She played her final two seasons at Burlington (N.J.) Life Center Academy, where she scored more than 2,000 points, was named to the 2024 McDonald's All-America team and checked in at No. 22 in the ESPN prospect rankings for her class.
Reiss, at that time, was at mid-major Rhode Island, but told the family that Kiyomi needed to shoot higher; that she was a high-major player.
McMiller signed with nearby Rutgers.
A year later, she was at Penn State.
"It just wasn't a good fit," she said. "Either one."
MOVING ON AGAIN
Make no mistake, McMiller played to her All-America accolades at both schools.
As a freshman at Rutgers, she averaged 18.7 points and reached double figures in 20 of her 23 games, with 10 outings of more than 20 points and three of 30 or more.
The Scarlett Knights went 13-20 and finished in a tie for 15th in the Big Ten at 3-13 record. To the portal, she went. McMiller opted to transfer to Penn State, which had gone 1-17 in the Big Ten and finished dead-last in the league that same season.
The Nittany Lions were better with McMiller on the ball. She finished third in the league in scoring (12th nationally) on her way to second-team All-Big Ten honors.
The team went 11-18 overall, 4-14 in league play (16th).
"We had a rough season last year, but when Kiyomi got hot, she was our engine. We had to get her the ball," said UF guard Moriah Murray, a 3-point shooting specialist who also transferred from Penn State during the offseason. "Teams tried to take her out and couldn't."
Case in point, McMiller had a six-game stretch late in the season that went like this: 30 points, 37, 30, 32, 37 and a career-high 40 (with a 7-for-10 performance from the 3-point line) in the team's home finale against Southern California.
Kiyomi McMiller, second-team All-Big Ten sophomore at Penn State.
Still, McMiller had just seven Big Ten victories in two seasons to show for all those points – 1,020 in the two seasons – and hard work. Back into the portal she went. Only this time, Reiss was in place at a power conference school and surrounded by an accomplished staff of assistants with lots of wins on their resumes.
"Tammi knows who Kiyomi is," Mike McMiller said.
Specifically, Reiss knew the player McMiller can be versus the player she had been. The makeover had to begin with stability. UF would be her fifth landing spot in six (two high schools, three colleges) and if her dream of reaching the WNBA — somewhere Reiss has been — was to come true, the nomadic ways needed to cease.
Or as Reiss put it, "If you can't play for me, you can't play up there."
CHARTING THE GATORS Kiyomi McMiller's statistics her first two collegiate seasons.
Season
School
Games (starts) / Pts / Rebs / Ast per game
FG%
3pt%
Record
2024-25
Rutgers
21 (19) / 18.7 / 4.7 / 3.0
41.5
33.3
13-20 (3-15)
2025-26
Penn State
29 (26) / 21.6 / 5.0 / 4.5
45.0
35.3
11-18 (4-14)
Career
50 (45) / 20.4 / 4.8 / 3.9
43.6
34.3
24-38 (7-29)
McMiller's track record as a stat-stuffer speaks for itself, but Reiss is demanding more and it starts with playing the right way and getting teammates involved. McMiller's unique and dazzling individual talents makes Reiss coach her even harder. Feelings are not spared.
"I can pretty much take any kind of criticism," McMiller said. "I know how to get past the yelling and hear how you're critiquing me and trying to help me."
Said UF associate head coach Tahnee Balerio, who tutors the guards: "She works her butt off. She's in the gym all the time. It's obvious she genuinely loves the game, but it's also about getting that work ethic into all facets. Not just practice and one-on-ones, but the weight room, nutrition, recovery, all of it. To be the best, to make your team the best, it all goes hand in hand. That's what we're pushing."
Tammi Reiss (left) has vowed to coach her centerpiece and playmaker hard.
That push is coming from the best place; a place she hasn't been since coming to college.
The place of winning.
"She's never truly tasted it," Reiss said. "Once she tastes it, there will be no going back. But she has to get that taste. She's got to hate losing more than she loves scoring."
And the rub of it all is that McMiller put her faith in a coach who bet on herself in coming to a place that has next-to-no track record for success this century. That will make their quest all the more gratifying should their shared vision come about.
"Someone's got to be the first to do it here," McMiller said.
She's been challenged. She's ready.
On April 2, 2023, McMiller was at American Airlines Arena in Dallas for the NCAA Women's title game between Iowa and LSU. The Caitlin Clark vs. Angel Reese game.
She was there, in the stands, when the post-game confetti fell from the ceiling.
"I grabbed some out of the sky and didn't want it to touch the ground," McMiller said. "In my mind, it was important to catch it. I remember thinking, 'This is where I want to be. This is the goal.' "
She smiled.
"Coach Tammi and my teammates, we feel confetti here."
In the meantime, the empty plaque in the stadium and banner in the atrium will wait.
