May 7, 2024
Locked On Women’s Basketball: How Tony Bozzella navigates the NCAA transfer portal
By The Next
Seton Hall head coach Tony Bozzella joins the podcast to talk all things transfer portal
Tony Bozzella, head coach of the Seton Hall Pirates, has succeeded in multiple eras of women’s basketball, and the transfer portal era is no different. On Tuesday’s episode of Locked On Women’s Basketball, Bozzella joins host Howard Megdal to talk, big-picture, about what March and April are really like now for head coaches and their staffs. Then the two discuss Faith Masonius, the Maryland transfer coming home to the Garden State, along with the rest of the new Pirates set to challenge for BIG EAST supremacy in 2024-25.
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Bozzella opens by speaking about how the transfer portal has impacted his program and college basketball more generally.
“Everyone’s like, ‘Oh, it’s part of your job,'” Bozzella said. “This isn’t what it was even three years ago but you have to learn, you have to adapt. We’ve been very fortunate, my staff has done a great job and getting some great kids out of the portal, we’ve been very fortunate, we’ve only lost two kids to the portal. One kid was a graduate. so she’s still got her degree from Seton Hall.
“So we did very well on both ends of that. But you know, it’s just been a challenge. And fortunately, we have succeeded … I look at the BIG EAST, I look at some of these schools and in other leagues, you know, they’re decimated by this [and] have to rebuild. And fortunately, we weren’t. Knock on wood. And we’ll hope that continues to be honest.”
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Later, Bozzella shares his thoughts on Faith Masonius, who is transferring to Seton Hall to complete her final season of collegiate eligibility. A New Jersey native, Masonius’ arrival in South Orange is a homecoming of sorts.
“This was put in motion six, seven years ago, by my former associate coach, Lauren DeFalco, who really recruited Faith … Faith played in two Sweet Sixteens, one round of 32 and one Elite Eight and was a huge contributor in all of them,” Bozzella said. “You look at our statistically … 48% shooting from the field jumps out at me, her ability to defend, pass the ball, play, you know, after getting an ACL [injury] coming back in seven months.
“All those things were really important to me, but the person was really important to me, the intensity, the experience, the competitiveness, the knowledge that she’s going to bring to the table is really going to, you know, separate us I think, from some of the past few teams we’ve had, which have been very good.”
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