Jamelle Elliott

Jamelle Renee Elliott (born May 18, 1974)

Early life Elliott was introduced to basketball by her cousin Adrien Elliott, who Elliott looked up to as a youngster. Adrien went to H.D. Woodson High School in Washington DC. Elliott wanted to follow her cousin to Woodson and get the best basketball experience so she enrolled at Woodson and traveled almost an hour-and-a-half drive each way to school.

"I used basketball as my way to hopefully go to college, and it worked out.”

While at Woodson, Elliott's basketball team won two consecutive state championships. She also had individual success, earning Scholar-Athlete honors, as well as being named to the Washington Post All-Metro Team.

College career Elliott played basketball in the summer leagues at Georgetown University. One day Geno Auriemma walked in and liked what he saw. He recruited Jamelle to play for him at Connecticut. Elliott also had other colleges recruiting her, such as Georgetown University, Syracuse University, Temple University, and George Washington University, but she eventually chose UConn.

She played in 135 games in her UConn career, having an overall record of 117–18 (.867) and never missing a game in her four years. In her junior season the Huskies went undefeated (35–0) and won the 1995 NCAA National Championship over the Tennessee Lady Vols, starting the decade rivalry between the two teams. She finished her UConn career with 1,387 points, and is ranked No. 7 among UConn's all-time rebounding leaders (1,054). Auriemma would say about her, "I've coached a lot of bright players, but Jamelle is the smartest and the toughest".

After college After graduating from UConn with a bachelor's degree in Business Administration, Elliott took the following year off from sports, and pursued her master's degree in Sports Management with an interest in some day becoming an athletic director of a college. She worked in UConn's business office as a graduate assistant. After taking a year off she began to miss basketball. The next year she accepted an assistant coaching job at Connecticut.

Elliott was also an assistant coach on the 2009 team that went undefeated 39–0.

Cincinnati Bearcats On May 5, 2009, Elliott achieved her goal of becoming a head coach by taking the Cincinnati Bearcats women's basketball job. She was UC women's head coach for nine seasons.

"I'd like the opportunity to turn a program around or make it better like Coach Auriemma has done with his basketball program at UConn."

Elliott was previously a candidate for jobs at Fairfield, George Washington, and Penn State.

On May 18, 2009, Marisa Moseley, an assistant coach at the University of Minnesota and former Boston University player, was hired to replace Elliott as assistant coach for the Huskies.

In March 2018, Elliott was fired after nine seasons. She was 113–162 during that time, but was coming off a 19–13 season in which the Bearcats played in the WNIT.

University of Connecticut statistics Jamelle Elliott Statistics at University of Connecticut Name G FG FGA PCT 3FG 3FGA PCT FT FTA PCT REB AVG A TO B S MIN PTS AVG 1992–93 29 110 227 0.485 8 26 0.308 65 85 0.765 227 7.8 33 85 2 21 779 293 10.1 1993–94 33 145 288 0.503 7 34 0.206 93 130 0.715 244 7.4 66 88 5 27 980 390 11.8 1994–95 35 131 253 0.518 14 24 0.583 106 129 0.822 282 8.1 98 82 3 30 911 382 10.9 1995–96 38 116 238 0.487 21 59 0.356 69 86 0.802 301 7.9 79 71 12 34 1045 322 8.5 Totals 135 502 1006 0.499 50 143 0.35 333 430 0.774 1054 7.8 276 326 22 112 3715 1387 10.3

Huskies of Honor induction

On December 29, 2013, the University of Connecticut inducted two women's basketball teams, the National Championship winning teams of 2002–03 and 2003–04, into the Huskies of Honor. Elliot was an assistant coach for each of those two seasons.