Gators head coach Tammi Reiss won her UF debut on Monday night at the O'Connell Center. (Photo: Bryce Walker/UAA Communications)
A New Standard, A Winning Start For Reiss
Tuesday, November 3, 2026 | Women's Basketball, Scott Carter
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By: Scott Carter, Senior Writer
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — It had been 364 days since Tammi Reiss coached her previous season opener, a Rhode Island victory over Manhattan College in the upper zip codes of the Bronx.
A lot had changed since then. On Monday night before a sparse O'Dome crowd, Reiss coached her first game at Florida, approaching the occasion with a familiar mindset.
Was she nervous, excited, eager to get started?
"I really didn't think about it,'' Reiss said. "The jitters for me was, 'I want to coach a really, really good game.' I'm so locked into coaching I don't really think about the stage.
"All I care about is winning."
Reiss left the arena with an 83-60 victory over Bucknell and a game ball presented to her in the celebratory locker room by athletic director Scott Stricklin. In a game the Gators controlled throughout, guards Kiyomi McMiller and Vanessa Harris showed that they can be a nasty 1-2 punch for opponents to handle.
McMiller, a transfer from Penn State, scored a game-high 31 points, and Harris, who made her collegiate debut a season ago for Rhode Island at Manhattan, showed why Reiss wanted the sophomore guard to join her at UF so badly. Harris scored 26 points and grabbed six rebounds, making 11 of 16 shots.
They made Reiss' official Gators debut drama-free.
"I literally could have run anything going downhill, and Vanessa and Ki executed it,'' Reiss said. "I coach these two very hard. I knew this was coming. This should be every night, that they show up and can output like this."
Kiyomi McMiller poured in a game-high 31 points in her Florida debut on Monday night. (Photo: Bryce Walker/UAA Communications)
The curtain rose on the Reiss Era of Gators women's basketball with little fanfare Monday night. But building a winning program and generating renewed interest around it are among the reasons Reiss took the job.
Reiss played with South Carolina head coach Dawn Staley at Virginia, and she is a student of the game's best coaches. She referenced legendary UConn coach Geno Auriemma in her postgame press conference Monday.
Auriemma built a program with the Huskies that unseated Tennessee as the best in women's college basketball. Staley has done a similar job with the Gamecocks.
"Geno's standard, that's my standard,'' she said. "You do everything the way of the champion. That's my standard. If you don't like it, you can't be here."
Reiss took over a Rhode Island program that had one winning season in the previous 15. She led the Rams to four 20-win seasons, a 28-5 record and an Atlantic 10 Conference title last year, highlighted by the program's first NCAA Tournament appearance since 1996.
Meanwhile, once a regular visitor to the NCAA Tournament in the 1990s under Carol Ross, the Gators have qualified for March Madness only four times over the previous 17 seasons, and not since 2022.
Reiss got to work immediately, rebuilding Florida's roster through the transfer portal. Only one player from last season's team remains, and McMiller and Harris are two of the most important pieces of the overhaul.
A 5-foot-9 combo guard from Silver Springs, Maryland, McMiller provides instant offense. She averaged 20.4 points in 50 career games over the past two seasons, as a freshman at Rutgers and a sophomore at Penn State, where she was named to the All-Big Ten Conference second team a season ago.
"Never in a million years did I ever think I was going to get the opportunity to coach her, being at Rhode Island,'' Reiss said. "I knew she was meant for a much bigger stage."
That stage is now with the Gators, where McMiller looked at home Monday, hitting jump shots at the buzzer to end both the first and second quarters.
"I get to play fast. It's just an easy offense to run. It just makes sense," McMiller said.
It didn't matter that Bucknell used a triangle-and-two defense – a hybrid approach that combines man-to-man with a zone – to disrupt Florida's offense.
Harris had no trouble, either. While her 3-point shot was dropping – she made 3 of 5 behind the arc – most of her baskets came by attacking the rim.
Rhode Island transfer Vanessa Harris scores two of her 26 points in Monday night's victory over Bucknell at the O'Dome. (Photo: Bryce Walker/UAA Communications)
Like McMiller, Harris is a Maryland native. She averaged more than 10 points and nearly four rebounds a game for Reiss' Rhode Island team last season and was named Atlantic 10 Sixth Woman of the Year.
Harris can play, but she can also lead.
"It's important for me to be able to set the standard in the locker room when Coach Tammi is not around,'' she said.
Reiss expects a lot from Harris on and off the court.
"She's built for the SEC. Out of all the kids on our team, I wanted Vanessa Harris,'' Reiss said. "She knows the standard. She owns the locker room. She sets the tone for us. If you have no culture and no foundation, you're dead in the water. It's going to be a really, really tough season."
One game in, and the Gators are off to a good start.
It wasn't perfect.
Reiss wanted Florida to hold the Bison to 40 points or less. They had 42 at the end of the third quarter. Gators center Vivian Iwuchukwu, a transfer from Southern Cal, was not feeling well and played less than half the game. And before the game, Bucknell coach Trevor Woodruff altered his starting lineup from what Reiss expected.
"It wasn't the best prep for game day at shootaround,'' she said. "I like to be prepared."
Based on the final score, the Gators were more than ready.
Reiss downplayed her debut afterward, but she had some fun with the players by squirting them with water bottles before meeting with the media. McMiller and Harris were named Co-Players of the Game, with McMiller wearing a gold chain adorned with the Gator head logo to the press conference.
One game in, and Reiss has her first building block.
