The Tammi Reiss era took center stage Wednesday, as the first-year coach and much of the women’s basketball team donned the Florida logo in front of a home crowd for the first time at the Stephen C. O’Connell Center.

As the reconstructed team looks to turn around the program, square one started with making a statement Wednesday, which it did. The Gators took the lead in the first 26 seconds of the exhibition and never let go, trouncing Flagler College 107-54 in their final tune-up before Monday’s season opener against Bucknell.

Junior guard Kiyomi McMiller, one of the Gators’ 12 new faces, spearheaded the offense, leading the team with 27 points and adding six assists. The Penn State transfer is no stranger to posting large figures. She ranked 12th in the nation in scoring last season at 21.6 points per game.

As the Florida coaching staff looks to replace 94% of its scoring from last year’s roster, it will lean on McMiller’s athleticism and production to play a key role in a Florida offense built on speed.

“I knew I needed a guard that could get a bucket,” Reiss said. “But the real reason I wanted to coach [McMiller] was, number one, I wanted to challenge and push her to become a winner, where she could lead the program to a championship. And number two: grow her game as a passer, start to develop point guard skills of reading and really running a team.

The offensive downpour was a team effort, though, with five Gators scoring in double figures. Florida shot 50.6% from the field and held Flagler to 30.9%. The Gators’ pressure in the paint helped establish their attack, accounting for 54 of their points. Forward Vivian Iwuchukwu was the most efficient from the field, going 5-for-7 during her 16-point night.

Reiss’ emphasis on protecting the ball clearly rubbed off on the Gators, who turned it over just eight times. Florida has averaged fewer than 16.7 turnovers a game only once in the last five seasons, so that’s a trend Reiss wants to see continue.

“Rebounding and turnovers, they’re the margin of victory in a lot of close games, and you’ve got to take care of the ball to get shots,” Reiss said. “I was a little bit disappointed in the second half; we got really lackadaisical with how we were handling the ball, some of our decisions on our passes. [Turnovers are] one of our emphasis, less than 12 every game.”

While turnovers didn’t seem to be a problem for the Gators, the same couldn’t be said for the Saints. Their 15 turnovers proved costly, as Florida scored 20 points off them.

The Gators jumped out of the gate firing, cashing in 12 points in nearly two minutes while holding the Saints scoreless. Flagler managed to put nine points on the board in the first quarter, but Florida didn’t let the Saints find their footing against its attack, ending the quarter with a 21-point lead.

Florida’s dominance on both sides of the ball continued throughout the rest of the half, and the Gators headed to the locker room up 56-19. They overwhelmed the Saints in the paint, outrebounding Flagler 58-36 for the game.

Rhode Island transfer guard Vanessa Harris set the tone down low, finishing with 18 points and 15 rebounds, including 10 of the Gators’ 27 defensive rebounds at the half. The 2026 Atlantic 10 Sixth Woman of the Year’s balanced game was a focus of the offseason.

“All summer, I’ve just been working on how I can get better, how can I improve from last year,” Harris said. “I feel like that was one of the things I wanted to improve on, just developing my overall game and not just being a scorer or not just being a defensive player. 

Harris is the only player Reiss brought with her to the Sunshine State, so the sophomore leading the way in the new system comes as no surprise. And Reiss will lean on the familiar foe to continue leading off the court as well.

“She also knows our culture,” Reiss said. “So when you’re coming to a new program, and you’ve got to hold that locker room, she knows the standard.”

Rhode Island transfer guard Vanessa Harris set the tone down low, finishing with 18 points and 15 rebounds, including 10 of the Gators’ 27 defensive rebounds at the half. Harris is the only player Reiss brought with her to the Sunshine State, so the sophomore leading the way in the new system comes as no surprise.

The Saints found more of a stride in the third quarter, led by Nicole Carreno, who scored a team-high 22 points, but still couldn’t leave a dent in Florida’s lead, which grew to 83-39. The large margin allowed Reiss to rotate in more players from the bench, who accounted for 26 of the Gators’ points.

Sophomore guard Ja’Niya Broome, whose 22.6 points per game set a program record at South Georgia Technical College last season, showed her skills could carry over from the junior college level. Late in the third quarter, Broome drove to the basket, drew a foul and added two points, drawing cheers from the Gators’ sideline. She ended the night with eight points.

“Ja’Niya has been practicing very well,” Reiss said. “She really plays within herself. She’s a straight-line driver, can finish at the rim. She can rebound and she can shoot the three. So she’s really smart and her opportunities within the offense when she scores and she’s very patient.”

Broome wasn’t the only major contributor off the bench. Senior forward Jade Weathersby, the lone returnee from Florida’s 2025-26 roster, made her mark, playing 20 minutes and recording a double-double with 13 points and 11 rebounds.

While the Gators proved dominant, they weren’t satisfied with their second-half effort defensively, allowing 35 points and turning the ball over six times after limiting the Saints to 19 points and themselves to two turnovers in the first half. 

As the Reiss era officially gets underway on Monday with its season opener against Bucknell, the team will continue sharpening its play as it enters a schedule with eight games against top-25 opponents.

“We should have done a lot better,” McMiller said. “We’re coming to kill every single game and that’s what Coach Tammi expects and that’s what we expect for ourselves. So we’re not happy with the win, and we’re not satisfied, but we’re definitely coming to look to kill every time.”