Robert Morris University Athletics

Robert Morris University women's basketball head coach Sal Buscaglia is entering his final season on the bench with the Colonials, 13 years after taking over and turning around the women’s basketball program. Since he has taken over, the women's basketball program has played in six national tournaments, won three Northeast Conference championships and earned playoff berths in 10 of his 12 seasons.
 
Buscaglia was named the Brenda Reilly NEC Coach of the Year for the third time after leading the Colonials to their fourth regular-season championship under his leadership in 2013-14. The Buffalo-native has posted a 205-165 record and is second all-time at RMU in victories. He has 692 wins in 37 seasons of coaching, last season eclipsing 400 victories in Division I. He is 423-290 (.593) in 24 seasons as a Division I coach.
 
In 2014-15, Buscaglia led the Colonials to the conference championship game for the second straight season. RMU finished the year 18-15 overall and took third in in the NEC standings with a record of 13-5. A trio of Colonials earned post-season honors highlighted by All-NEC First Team selection Anna Niki Stamolamprou who averaged 15.4 points and 5.6 rebounds per game. Freshmen Megan Smith and Mikalah Mulrain were named to the league’s All-Rookie Team.
 
Buscaglia returned the Colonials to the top of the NEC mountain in 2013-14, winning the regular season championship and the tournament title. It was the fourth regular season championship and third tournament title in Buscaglia’s reign. The feat earned him NEC Coach of the Year, while RMU earned a plethora of post-season hardware.
 
Artemis Spanou was named the NEC Player of the Year for the second season earning All-NEC honors for the fourth straight season after leading the league in rebounding once again. Under Buscaglia’s tutelage, Spanou blossomed into RMU’s all-time leader in points and rebounds and owns 10 RMU season or career records. Anna Niki Stamolamprou and Cassie Oursler were also named to the NEC All-Rookie Team, joining a long list of Colonial players to earn honors under Buscaglia.
 
Not only has Coach Sal, as he is respectfully called, turned the program into a perennial NEC power, but a nationally competitive program. The turnaround could not have been more dramatic. His first squad, in 2003-04, posted a 3-24 record.
 
But given a year to recruit and rebuild, his 2004-05 squad posted a 20-10 record marking the third-largest turnaround in NCAA history and giving RMU its first 20-win season since the 1983-84 season. Perhaps the biggest piece in the resurgence of the program came to the forefront that season in the form of Sugeiry Monsac. It also earned Buscaglia the Brenda Reilly NEC Coach of the Year award, his first of two such honors during his tenure at RMU.
 
Monsac was a highly-touted recruit sought out by numerous BCS level programs, but when she committed to Coach Sal and RMU, it marked a turnaround. Monsac was named the NEC Player of the Year in 2004-05 and was a two-time All-NEC selection who would score 1,177 points and grab 689 rebounds in just 67 career games.
 
In his fourth season, the team that had gone 1-26 the season before his arrival, earned a berth into the NCAA Tournament for the first time in team history after a victory in the Northeast Conference Championship in 2007. That squad finished with a program-record 24 victories to just eight losses and completed the program's resurrection.
 
One year later, Buscaglia and his Colonials repeated the feat. This time around, the squad was led by record-setting three-point shooting of Sade Logan and the first triple-doubles in team history by NEC Tournament MVP Chinata Nesbit. Coach Sal and his staff put in a dribble-drive motion offense - one of just two teams in women's basketball running the offense - to take advantage of the team's athletically-gifted guards. Logan would tie the NCAA record with 126 three-pointers that season and RMU posted a 23-10 record.
 
After a 13-18 mark in an injury-marred 2008-09 season, the 2009-10 squad bounced back by setting team records for regular season wins (22) and conference victories (17) while leading the team to its first outright NEC Regular Season Championship and an eventual Postseason WNIT Tournament. The appearance marked the fourth consecutive season RMU played in a national tournament. Angela Pace was the feature player on that team becoming the first player in league history to earn both Player of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year.
 
Artemis Spanou made her mark in 2010-11 when she became the first Robert Morris player to earn NEC Rookie of the Year honors. Spanou and her teammates posted a 16-14 mark and led the squad back to the NEC semifinals.
 
Last season, the Colonials went 18-14 overall and 11-6 in league games, returning for the eighth time in the last nine seasons to the Northeast Conference semifinals. The team earned and invitation and the top seed in Women's Basketball Invitational. It was the fifth time in six seasons that Robert Morris was invited to play in a national tournament.
 
Before Robert Morris, Buscaglia spent five seasons at Manhattan College (1998-2003).  In just his second season at Manhattan, Buscaglia led the Lady Jaspers to a 17-win season, marking the fifth most victories in school history, and was recognized as the 24th most improved team in NCAA Division I.  In five seasons at Manhattan, Buscaglia compiled a record of 79-65, including a 20-10 record and NCAA Division I tournament appearance in 2002-03.
 
Buscaglia's Manhattan team received votes in the Top 25 in 2002-03 as the Jaspers claimed the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference regular season and tournament championships. The MAAC championship in 2003 was the first league title in school history. Manhattan's 20-10 overall record was also the best in school history. In 2001-02 he guided the jaspers to an 18-10 overall record and was named the Co-Coach of the Year in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference.
 
For eight seasons prior to his arrival at Manhattan, Buscaglia was head coach of the University at Buffalo from 1990-98 and led the Bulls to five 20-win campaigns.  In its first season in Division I competition in 1991-92, Buffalo finished with a 23-6 record, which was the 10th highest winning percentage (.793) in Division I that season.  The Bulls won East Coast Conference regular season titles in 1992, 1993 and 1994, as well as tournament championships in 1992 and 1994.
 
In 1994-95, Buffalo moved to the Mid-Continent Conference and Buscaglia led the Bulls to a share of the Mid-Con regular-season title in 1995 and an appearance in the conference tournament finals in 1997.  In each of Buffalo's first three seasons in the Mid-Con, Buscaglia led the Bulls to at least 20 wins. For his efforts at Buffalo, Buscaglia earned New York State Coach of the Year honors in 1992 and 1996.
 
Buscaglia started his coaching career at Hilbert Junior College, in Hamburg, New York, where in 12 seasons from 1977-90 he amassed a record of 249-62. During his tenure at Hilbert, his teams collected 93 straight league wins, eight straight Region Tournament Championships (1982-90), eight straight regular season conference championships (1982-90) and eight straight National Tournament appearances (1982-90). In 1988-89 his team finished in the elite eight.  Coach Sal is a member of the Hilbert College Hall of Fame.
 
A native of Buffalo, New York, Buscaglia is a 1976 graduate of Canisius with a Bachelor of Science Degree in business and accounting and in 1989 earned a Master's Degree in physical education, also from Canisius. In 1980, Buscaglia received a Master's Degree in business education from the State University of New York College at Buffalo.
 
Buscaglia, a proud father and grandfather, has a son Charlie, who is the associate head coach and the coach-in-waiting at Robert Morris, and a daughter, Deanna. Deanna resides in Elma, N.Y. with her husband Mark and their children Paityn, Shane and Eva.