University of Connecticut, 1996
• 1995 Academic All-America®
• 1996 Academic All-America®
• 1996 Academic All-America® Women's Basketball Player of the Year (university division)
Jennifer Rizzotti was inducted into the CoSIDA Academic All-America® Hall of Fame at the 2016 convention in Dallas, Texas.
“When I got the initial call, I might have thought someone was pulling my leg if I hadn’t immediately recognized Dick Enberg’s voice. As an avid sports fan, I grew up listening to him, so it was obviously an honor to have someone so respected in the sports world inform me I was getting inducted into the CoSIDA Academic All-America® Hall of Fame. I take great pride in the fact I played basketball for the University of Connecticut in the infancy of this tremendous run of national dominance. It’s often overlooked just how much our academic success was a foundation for the program as much as our success on the court. Most importantly, I credit my experiences as a college student-athlete for helping me to understand the qualities necessary to succeed in life.” - Jen Rizzotti
Jen Rizzotti has been center stage in the game of women's basketball for so long as a player, a NCAA national champion and scholar-athlete at the University of Connecticut, a professional player, and now as the head coach at the University of Hartford and as an assistant and head coach for USA Basketball program.
Rizzotti is one of the most recognizable figures in women’s college basketball, having won championships at the high school (New Fairfield, Conn.), collegiate (UConn) and professional (Houston Comets) levels as a player in addition to her tremendous success coaching the University of Hartford Hawks women's basketball team.
She was inducted to the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame on June 8, 2013, becoming the third member of the Connecticut Huskies family to be inducted joining fellow Academic All-America
® Hall of Famer Rebecca Lobo and head coach Geno Auriemma.
During her illustrious college career, she was instrumental in helping Connecticut establish itself as the benchmark program in Division I women's basketball, leading UConn as the starting point guard to its first (of 11) national championships in 1995 with an undefeated 35-0 record. Rizzotti played for UConn from 1992-1996, leading the Huskies to a 117-18 record.
Finishing her career at Connecticut with 1,540 points, 637 assists, and 349 steals, Rizzotti was a Kodak All-American and the NCAA Regional Most Outstanding Player twice (1995, 1996) and also named an
Associated Press All-American and a USBWA All-American in 1996. Also as a senior, she claimed honors as Big East Player of the Year, the Big East Scholar Athlete of the Year, the
Associated Press Player of the Year, the Honda-Broderick Cup winner as the Collegiate Woman Athlete of the Year, and the Wade Trophy winner.
She graduated in 1996 with a degree in biology and earned Academic All-America
® honors as a junior and senior. As a senior, the first team Academic All-America
® pick also was chosen as the university division's GTE/CoSIDA Academic All-America of the Year for women's basketball.
Rizzotti played eight seasons of professional basketball following her graduation from Connecticut in 1996. In addition to five seasons in the WNBA - two with the Houston Comets and three with the Cleveland Rockers - she competed for three seasons with the New England Blizzard in the American Basketball League. She won two WNBA titles with the Houston franchise.
At the time of her appointment as Hartford head coach in 1999, she was the youngest Division I women’s basketball coach in the country. In 16 seasons as the University of Hartford head women’s basketball coach, she has guided her teams to six NCAA tournament appearances and four WNIT tournaments. They have won either the America East regular season or tourney championship titles on nine occaisons. A total of 23 different players have been named to All-Conference teams and her program has been ranked among the Women's Basketball Coaches Association's Academic Top 25 teams three times.
Heavily involved in the USA Women’s Basketball national program, Rizzotti was the head coach for the gold-medal winning teams at the 2011 U19 World Championships and the 2010 FIBA Americas U-18 Championship for Women, earning 2011 USA Basketball National Coach of the Year honors. She served as assistant coach for the 2014 FIBA World Championships and rejoined the USA Basketball Women's National Team's staff this past fall as a court coach in preparation for the 2016 Olympic Games.
Story written 4/7/16 by Barb Kowal, CoSIDA Director of External Affairs