It became official when former UConn assistant coach Jamelle Elliott walked into the Fifth Third Arena Tuesday afternoon and was officially introduced as the new women's basketball coach at Cincinnati.

Elliott had two goals at the press conference. The first was to maintain her composure and not break down when asked about her last 12 seasons on UConn coach Geno Auriemma's staff or the four years as a UConn player before heading into the coaching profession. The second was not to confuse the words Connecticut and Cincinnati in her first session with the Cincinnati media. She responded perfectly on the latter but failed miserably in holding back the tears when looking back at her time at UConn.

"Every time I talked about the relationship I had with him, I got kind of filled up (with tears)," Elliott said. "That just goes to shows how much he meant to me and how much I am going to miss him."

Auriemma flew in to be in attendance at the press conference, something that made Elliott even more emotional.

"I spent half my life there. Everybody there prepared me for this moment," Elliott said. "I want to make them proud and I am not going to disappoint them."

Elliott spent the last 17 seasons at UConn, four as a player becoming just the second Husky to finish her career with 1,000 points and 1,000 rebounds, then was a graduate assistant in the UConn business office before beginning a 12-year run as an assistant coach at her alma mater.

She replaces J. Kelley Hall who was fired after Cincinnati finished 15th and 16th in the Big East in his two seasosn and becomes the second assistant coach to leave for a Division I job in the last two seasons. Tonya Cardoza led Temple to the NCAA tournament in her first season before losing to UConn in the second round at Gampel Pavilion.

"I heard about from somebody else other than Jamelle and I let her know that I wasn't happy about that," Cardoza said with a laugh. "I spoke with her and said I heard she was a candidate for the job. She said they had offered her the job and was thinking about taking it. I'm really happy for her, it is a great opportunity and it is something I know she has wanted for a while."

It won't be easy. Cincinnati was on the verge of setting a Big East record for fewest points in a half before a Kayla Roudebush 3-pointer in the final 30 seconds of the first half allowed the Bearcats to avoid that distinction. The Bearcats do return three starters including Roudebush, the team's leading scorer for the last two seasons.

Elliott will look to put together a staff quickly. Former UConn star and Cincinnati native Mel Thomas will not be a part of it. Elliott said she would love to have made Thomas a graduate assistant but that Thomas still has dreams of playing overseas and giving professional basketball a chance. She plans to meet with Tari Cummings, the only remaining assistant coach and director of basketball operations Tomeka Brown to decide if there are places for them on her first staff. She said she would like to have at least one assistant coach with collegiate head coaching experience but other than that spoke in general terms about the makeup of her staff.

Elliott said keeping more of the Ohio high school stars in the state is a priority of hers.

"I am aware, being at Connecticut for so long, how much talent is in the state of Ohio," Elliott said. "One of my top priorities is to make sure of hopefully make sure that some of the talent that is in the state of Ohio is going to stay here in the state and will want to join the family here at the University of Cincinnati."

UConn moved quickly to bring in Shea Ralph when Cardoza left a year ago and don't be surprised if they act quickly again.

Elliott met with the UConn players on Monday and admitted it was extremely emotional speaking with rising senior post players Tina Charles and Kaili McLaren who she worked with every day in practice but they knew this was a good opportunity for her and they were more happy for her than they were saddened by her departure.

Cardoza mentioned that she would love to start a series with Cincinnati so she could play against her close friend and that if they could have dropped a game, Temple could very well have been coming to UConn to play in the three-game WBCA Classic. She is looking to either the 2010-11 or 2011-12 seasons to set up a game against UConn. Elliott was a little overwhelmed with so many other things that future non-conference opponents were pretty far down on her radar screen but did say she could see Cincinnati and Temple playing each other down the road.