After a strong finish to the 2021 season, American University women's basketball has its sights set on a return to the NCAA Tournament. The Eagles are fresh off a Patriot League Championship win and have a newly promoted head coach, Tiffany Coll, who's fired up about the teams potential with both newcomers and veterans alike.
Tiffany Coll
Tiffany Coll was named the 14th head coach in AU Women's Basketball history on June 7, 2022 after nine years with the program, including four as associate head coach. A vital member of the most successful staff in program history, Coll helped lead the Eagles to an overall record of 160-106 (.602), including 105-48 (.686) in the Patriot League. Among those victories were the program's only three Patriot League Championship titles, three regular-season PL titles, and five 22+ win seasons. She also helped guide the program to its only three NCAA Tournament appearances, including 2021, along with two WNIT berths.
Building on tradition
Behind Head Coach Tiffany Coll is an all new coaching staff, that's looking to forge their own path here at American while keeping the tradition of excellence that's seen this program into the NCAA Tournament three times in seven years. The coaching staff consists of three assistant coaches: Claire Mattox, Kaity Healy, and Michelle Holmes.
Holmes is an American alumna ('16) and helped lead the team to its first-ever Patriot League Championship in 2015. She was named to both the Patriot League Third Team and Patriot League All-Tournament Team. She holds the AU record for single-season field-goal percentage, hitting 64.3 percent. Her post experience is going to be vital with helping the bigs this season.
Mattox is bringing her coaching experience from three years at Cornell where the three-point percentage for the team rose steadily under her leadership. Healy comes from FDU where she helped guide FDU to a Northeast Conference regular season title and WNIT berth in 2022, and was part of the NEC Coaching Staff of the Year while at FDU and before that was the Conference USA Coaching Staff of the Year while at FIU.
Veterans
The Eagles are returning eight players from the 2021-22 PL Championship squad, including Lauren Stack who started in all 26 Patriot League games. Last season, Stack set and broke several career highs for herself in points (12), rebounds (8), and blocks (2) per game.
The senior from St. Charles, Ill., a suburb of Chicago, will get a chance to play in the Windy City's Wintrust Arena when the team takes on DePaul to tip off the season.
Junior Kayla Henning, a native of Evanston, Illinois, will also get a chance to play in front of the home Midwest crowd in the season opener. Henning, on top of her basketball career that saw her playing 29 games in 2021-22, has an entrepreneurial spirit that includes advocacy work with Evanston Fight for Black Lives (EFBL) and the creation of Radical Love that works in conjunction with Project EDEN here in D.C.
Newcomers
Joining the team this year are three internationals, and two transfers. Anna Rescifina joins the team from Italy, Laura Nogues comes from Spain, and Molly Lavin jumped over the pond from England. Each has experience playing for elite clubs in their home countries.
Juniors Anna LeMaster and Marisa Lee are both transfers joining American, bringing their collegiate playing knowledge from Dayton and Hartford respectively. LeMaster helped Dayton clinch the A-10 Regular Season title and top seed in their conference tournament.
defending champions
The Eagles were the No. 2 seed heading into Patriot League Tournament in 2022. They took down Lafayette, Boston University, and Bucknell on their road to victory. This was American's third Patriot League title. With the win, the team punched their ticket to head to the NCAA Tournament; it was their third berth in seven years.
