Rams look to improve on record breaking 22-win season
The Rams lost more than 70% of their scoring and rebounding with last year’s graduating class, but are retooling for another promising season. PHOTO CREDIT: yurview.com
After a record-setting season in 2021-22, the University of Rhode Island Women’s Basketball team has reloaded and is primed for another successful campaign, receiving a third-place projection in the Atlantic 10 pre-season rankings and featuring two pre-season third-team all-conference selections.
The Rams lost over 70 percent of their scoring and rebounding from last year’s historic squad that finished 22-7 (12-2 in the Atlantic 10). Fourth-years Dez Elmore (12 points and eight rebounds per game), Chanell Williams (eight points per game), Marie-Paule Foppossi (11 points and eight rebounds per game), former Atlantic 10 co-player of the year Emmanuelle Tahane (14 points and 10 rebounds per game) and graduate student Marta Vargas (two points per game) all graduated, with Foppossi and Tahane now playing professionally in France and Vargas playing in Germany.
Head Coach Tammi Reiss has a lot of roles to fill with these members leaving, but did an impressive job of recruiting both in the transfer portal and for first-year players. The Rams will feature nine new players this year, and Reiss has liked what she has seen so far, but still has questions about filling the many holes left in the squad after last year.
“They came in ready to play,” Reiss said. “I don’t have to, at times, beg kids to play hard. I just don’t know who is going to be the next Emmanuelle Tahane? Who is going to be the next MP? We have people in the wings waiting, but how fast will they embrace that role?”
One of those people in the wings is one of Rhody’s new additions, Tenin Magassa, a 6’5” junior from Morsang-Sur-Orge, France and a transfer from Atlantic 10 rival Dayton. Coach Reiss has big plans for “Big T” and hopes the pre-season third-team all-conference selection can be one of the best to come through the program.
“We are looking for T to be a first option,” Reiss said. “She is going to be a double-double machine, and we want her to break the all-time block record at URI.”
Magassa was very excited to join Rhody from an Atlantic 10 rival, citing Rhody’s diversity as the biggest difference between her experience in Kingston and Dayton.
“The fact that we have so many people from all over the place is just a great thing,” Magassa said. “We have been getting to know each other better and building relationships.”
Magassa is one of three transfers from within the conference alongside graduate students Emma Squires (Preseason Third Team All-Conference) from Richmond and Madison Hattix-Covington from VCU, as well as interconference graduate transfer Sayawni Lassiter from Rutgers to help give experience to the new roster. Reiss intentionally brought in players she had seen at Syracuse and URI and feels she knows what they can provide for her.
“I like to bring in kids I feel like I know,” Reiss said. “That way, I know they can do it, I have seen them do it, and they know me as well.”
Lassiter felt that the familiarity she already had from being recruited by Coach Reiss and Rhody’s recent success was what drew her to Kingston.
“I just knew Coach Reiss from being recruited by her at Syracuse,” Lassiter said. “We just want to build on what this coaching staff has done over the years.”
That experience comes in at the same time as four new first-years, made up of Chantelle Blagrove, Anaelle Dutat, Anete Adler and Ines Debroise. That makes for seven new faces in total this season, but Reiss feels the basic principles of her team will still shine through.
“Our pillars are still there,” Reiss said. “We want to be the best rebounding team in the conference. We want to defend, and then we want to run.”
Despite a successful campaign in 2022-23 that saw the team break the program record for wins in a season, Reiss has even higher aspirations for this year and feels the coaching staff has lessons to learn as well as players.
“I think, as a coaching staff, we preached championship from day one,” Reiss said. “So when we didn’t get the regular season, it was really deflating. I couldn’t reel them back in. I never want that to happen again. This year we are just focused on the process and getting better every day.”
The Rams will begin their quest for an Atlantic 10 title on Nov. 7 at 7 p.m. when they travel to Harvard to open their season, with aspirations of another historic campaign.