UF women's basketball coach Tammi Reiss during start of summer practice.
Tammi Time
Wednesday, July 1, 2026 | Women's Basketball, Chris Harry
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By: Chris Harry, Senior Writer
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – The players were split into three groups for a competitive shooting drill. The stakes: Winning team watches the losers do a coinciding number of push-ups based on the margin of defeat.
When the mini-game was done, Florida women's basketball coach Tammi Reiss called for the penalty phase to begin when one of the players off the runner-up squad suggested her team shouldn't have to do the push-ups because they came in second, not third.
Reiss wasn't playing.
"That's your generation talking, but there are no participation trophies here," Reiss snapped. "If you don't win, you're last. If we finish second in the SEC, we finish last. Start thinking that way."
And down to the floor they went … both squads.
The Gators are four months from taking the floor for the first time under Reiss, who arrived in March after working wonders at Rhode Island and made no secret of her intent to turn a program mired in mediocrity on its head. At her introductory news conference, the 56-year-old Reiss vowed to reset the UF culture and would welcome back players who embraced her vision to stick along for what was going to be a rocky reset ride.
Just one out of 10 potential returnees chose to hop on board.
No problem. Reiss and her new staff attacked the transfer portal and signed a dozen players, all but two of whom arrived and enrolled last month and have been on the floor the last two weeks for the start of summer workouts that are doubling as both the foundation for the 2026-27 season and the program's base for years to come.
"We're establishing culture and standard," said Reiss, whose transfer class ranked among the nation's top 15. "Because everyone is basically new, they're going to have to understand how we do things with our pace, tempo, communication; those are standards and each has to be really, really good. We're setting the tone now. It'll take three months to create that standard, so come September they'll be ready to rock and roll when we go into preseason practice."
— Gators Women's Basketball (@GatorsWBK) June 26, 2026
There are standards within the standards. Specifically, there are elements of the game that Reiss, flanked by a trio of associate head coaches – Shay Robinson (Louisville), Tahnee Balerio (Georgia) and CJ Jones (Virginia) – with power conference pedigree, will emphasize daily. Practices feature no shortage on drilling rebounding, passing and finishing at the rim.
Those, of course, are basketball things. Then there are the intangibles.
"Coach has made a point that energy is one of her non-negotiables," senior forward Jade Weathersby said. "When your body is hurting, the energy might be lower, but she's not going to care. She wants the energy picked up."
CHARTING THE GATORS
In overhauling the UF women's basketball roster -- only one of the 12 players on the 2026-27 roster were Gators last season -- the new staff must replace 94% of the team's scoring and 92% of its rebounding from last season.
Player
Pos.
Class
Previously
Of note
Aurora Almón
F
Junior
Syracuse/Miami
Averaged 6.6 offensive rebounds per 40 minutes, with career-high 14 boards in a game.
No. 2 scorer off bench in 26 games for Gators last season.
Weathersby is the lone holdover from the 2025-26 squad, which in the fifth season under Kelly Rae Finley finished 18-15, including 5-11 in Southeastern Conference play for a fourth consecutive season, despite featuring three of the four McDonald's All Americans in program history. The players that bolted weren't buying what Reiss was selling and the portal served as the new coach's weeding-out process.
After Weathersby, the '26-27 Gators will feature nine Division I transfers, one junior college transfer and two true freshmen, one of them from overseas. Two of the incoming players won't arrive for another few weeks. In the interim, the team will foster development, chemistry and camaraderie through team workouts, individual instruction sessions, off-court bonding activities and player-organized pickup games (sans the coaches).
Worth noting: Pickup games were not a thing for recent UF teams. Players opted out of them.
One of the D1 newcomers, sophomore guard Vanessa Harris, followed Reiss from Rhode Island, so she knew what to expect and previewed those expectations for new teammates in the run-up to workouts.
"I really just told them that Coach Tammi is going to make it fun off the court, but she's going to make sure you work hard on the court," Harris said. "She is going to hold you accountable every day. She is not going to let you slack off. Nobody."
One thing Harris has found different in her transition from the Atlantic 10 Conference to the SEC is the skill level of her new teammates. That's no ding at RIU. The Rams were picked to finish fourth in the A-10 last season, then went 28-5 and won both the regular-season and conference tournament titles on the way to the program's first NCAA Tournament in 30 years.
Now, Harris is surrounded by players from the likes of Penn State, Southern California, Arizona State and St. John's, to name a few.
"It's just a higher level of basketball here," she said.
Early returns would suggest 5-foot-9 junior guard Kiyomi McMiller would be at the highest level in the UF gym. Her résumé would indicate the same.
Transfer guardKiyomi McMiller averaged 21.6 points per game at Penn State last season.
McMiller, from Penn State, finished second in the Big Ten in scoring at 21.6 points a game to go with 5.0 rebounds and 4.5 assists. She also garnered 2024 McDonald's All-America honors (same class as former Gators Liv McGill and Me'Arah O'Neal) and backed it up with the Nittany Lions. She had one stretch last season of six consecutive games scoring at least 30 points, including a career-high 40 in a win over USC.
"Honestly, I think this team is going to be really good, but it all starts with working really hard, and we're doing that," McMiller said. "We're paying attention to details, which are things Coach talks about all the time."
An example.
Reiss wants to play fast. Her early action is called "Race 25." When the Gators get a rebound, they're out in transition immediately and looking to score – be it a layup, wide-open 3-pointer or open pull-up jumper – within the first five seconds (or before the shot clock hits 25 seconds). If nothing is there, the offense backs out and triggers into its motion sets.
Precision passes are paramount in her system. At one point, Reiss stopped practice and lit into her players about providing good, clean hand targets, especially when advancing the ball up the floor. In an ensuing sequence, when the passes still weren't good enough, an assistant blew the action dead again and let them know it.
"Show them where, when and how you want the ball," Reiss demanded.
Stat: UF averaged fewer than 16.7 turnovers a game only once over the previous five seasons.
The Gators, Reiss vowed, are going to take care of the ball. Improvement on that front starts now. On a bunch of fronts.
Senior forward Jade Weathersby, the only returning player from the '25-26 team, averaged 5.1 points and 3.1 rebounds in 26 games.
"Not a lot of basketball players like drill work – it's repetitive, it can be boring – but if you're not doing the little things they'll show up later when it matters," Weathersby said. "We need to do the little things."
In Reiss's world – let's call it "Tammi Time" – there are no little things. The smallest detail is big. That's the first step in flipping the culture of the only Florida program never to win a conference title.
"You are what you allow," Reiss said.
And what you don't. After another drill, this one emphasizing defensive close-outs and finishing drives to the basket, the losing team tried again to bargain. One of them would take a double-or-nothing 3-point shot to cancel out the penalty task; this time, burpees.
Nope, said the winning team. They made 'em do the work.
"That should be the mindset," McMiller said with a grin. "We're not playing for second. We're working to win. Period."
