Tonya's Time

Temple introduced Tonya Cardoza as its new women's basketball coach on Tuesday afternoon. The former UConn assistant, and Dawn Staley's former teammate at Virginia, characterized the opportunity to lead the Owls as the first head coaching job that she "really got excited about."

Tonya Cardoza has felt ready to be a head coach for a few years.

She just needed the right place.

Cardoza thinks she found it in Temple University. The long-time Connecticut assistant coach was introduced as the head women’s basketball coach of the Owls on Tuesday.

Cardoza, a former college teammate of Dawn Staley – the coach she replaced – helped UConn to a 465-41 record in her 14 years in Storrs with 13 Big East regular season championships, 12 conference tournament championships, eight Final Four appearances, and five national titles. She has coached players such as Jen Rizzotti, Sue Bird, and Diana Taurasi.

“A lot of schools have obviously approached me,” Cardoza said. “None piqued my interest like Temple. This was the first one I really got excited about. Once Temple came up, I knew this was the right fit. I’m excited about the city. I’m a city girl. It’s a great sports town. I know I made the right decision.”

Her mentor and the legendary head coach at UConn, Geno Auriemma, agreed that Temple is a place where Cardoza can succeed.

“Sometimes when you’re coaching at Connecticut, you think your next job is going to be head coach at Connecticut,” Auriemma said. “I think a lot of assistants think you’re going to get a big BCS job. But this is the right place for her. It’s small enough that everybody knows each other and big enough to be a national program. She’s in the perfect spot.

“It’s in the city, which appeals to the kind of kids she wants to recruit and the environment she’s used to living in. [Bill Bradshaw] will be a great mentor for her. Fran Dunphy will be spectacular with her. Not one person in America has a bad thing to say about Dunph. She’ll be in a great situation, and she’ll be terrific.”

Cardoza, who worked with the Huskies guards, said she didn’t want to leave UConn when it was in a slight down period a few years ago.

“When Connecticut wasn’t doing as well, they said our guard play was why,” Cardoza said. “I took it personally. That was a shot at me. I wanted to prove our guards were going to be the best, and last year we had two All-Americans and a first round WNBA draft pick. I didn’t want to leave behind a job (unfinished).”

Auriemma noted he saw Cardoza developing head coach qualities about six or seven years ago.

“Her confidence level today is 1,000 times better than when we hired her,” he said. “She’s gotten better every year. The first couple years I’d go down the one end with the big guys, and invariably I’d have to go down Tonya’s end because she wasn’t very talkative, wasn’t very demonstrative. She was very introverted. Then it came to a point where she had everything under control. The players were responding, she was organized, she knew what she wanted to do and how she wanted to do it.”

Auriemma said Cardoza already has the most important quality of a head coach.

“There are two kinds of coaches in the world, those who coach great players and ex-coaches,” Auriemma said. “She has the ability to get involved with good players, and the other thing you have to do is get with those players and make them better. That’s one of her strengths.

“She doesn’t know how to manage a game, she doesn’t know how to manage a staff, she hasn’t been in those situations. So the things she has to learn are those you can only learn as a head coach. Working with players and making them better after you recruit them, that’s something she already does.”

Staley took over a moribund program eight years ago and made it the standard in the Atlantic 10 and a perennial NCAA Tournament participant. The next goal for the program is to go deeper into the tournament – as the Owls haven’t been able to advance past the opening weekend.

Cardoza said she hoped to build on the solid defensive team that Staley left her and improve an offense that shot just 40 percent from the field and averaged 59.6 points per game last year.

“There’s a foundation there,” Cardoza said. “They’re willing to work, I’m willing to work, and we’re going to try to get this done as soon as possible.

“Dawn was definitely a defensive coach, and I don’t understand how because in college she couldn’t really play defense. Being an offensive player, I like to score and that’s something that lacked last year. That’s what we have to improve on mostly. We’re going to look to score in all types of ways – pressing, running the wings, motion offense. It’s going to be all five people involved.”

LaKeisha Eaddy, the Owls’ third-leading scorer last season and the top returnee, was excited about Cardoza’s coaching philosophy.

“I hope she makes us more of an uptempo team and an offensive threat,” said the junior-to-be. “I think for some of us it will be a transition because her coaching style might be different. But she’s coached Taurasi and Sue Bird. I’m definitely excited.

“With her being at UConn, I definitely hoped she would get this job. I’ve definitely been anxious. [Staley] leaving halfway through my time here, I took that to heart, but I’m definitely excited and happy to see what Coach Cardoza will do with us.”

Cardoza said she would seek Staley’s counsel often.

“She’s going to be a source I can tap into because she’s been through everything here,” Cardoza said.

And as sure as Cardoza was that she found the right fit, Bradshaw shared a similar sentiment.

“It was 56 days ago Dawn Staley called to tell me she was moving on to South Carolina,” the athletic director said. “It was well worth the 56 days. There’s nothing more important we do than hiring the right people, no matter how long it takes.”

Harvey Levine's Tonya Cardoza Gallery