‘FREE SPIRIT’

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or several summers, former Syracuse assistant coach Tammi Reiss hosted annual Welcome Back Barbecues. This particular one, in the summer of 2018, kicked off the assistant’s fourth year at SU. It was only Tiana Mangakahia’s second. Everyone knew who she was, though. It was impossible to not know the fiery Australian point guard, who led the country with 304 assists as a freshman.

But Emily Engstler, a highly-touted incoming freshman, didn’t know Tiana all that well yet. Not the way other attendees did. If she had, perhaps she wouldn’t have spent the past several minutes trying to prove she was more intrepid than her. Reiss — having seen enough of their bickering — stepped in.

“Oh, yeah?” Reiss began. “I bet you $20 that y’all won’t run, jump the fence and jump in my neighbor’s pool.”

“You won’t do it,” Engstler chimed in, goading Tiana.

It’s difficult to imagine a more creative way to lose $20. Enthusiastically, Tiana removed her shoes, ran across the street and hopped Reiss’ neighbor’s fence. She jumped in the pool and swam a lap before returning to the barbecue, drenched and fully-clothed. Then, Reiss informed Tiana that her neighbor owned a Ring camera. All Tiana cared about was collecting her money.

“This girl’s crazy, man,” Reiss recalled Engstler saying. “I thought I was crazy? She’s crazy.”

To most of the dozens of Syracuse coaches and players at Reiss’ home that day, it wasn’t surprising. That was Tiana. Engstler may have been one of few who were truly surprised. Her carefree spirit took her from Australia to Hutchinson Community College in Kansas, then finally to SU, where she became the program’s all-time assist leader. Across her three seasons as Syracuse’s floor general, Tiana earned two All-Atlantic Coast Conference First-Team selections. But if all went according to plan, she would’ve easily had three.

In the summer of 2019, Tiana was diagnosed with stage 2 breast cancer, forcing her to miss her junior season. After eight rounds of chemotherapy and a double mastectomy, doctors declared her cancer-free. Tiana played out her senior year, graduated from Syracuse in 2021 and pursued a professional basketball career, participating in a WNBA training camp before playing in Russia, France and Australia.

Then, her cancer returned in 2023 — now stage 4. She still refused to let it affect her life. She traveled the world, began coaching and squeezed every bit of joy from the time her body allowed.

“Cancer really, really scares me,” Tiana would often tell her parents, Cynthia and Terei Mangakahia. “But not living my life actually scares me more.”

Tiana died in a palliative care facility on Sept. 11, surrounded by family and friends. She was 30.

“I have two daughters, and if they both turned out like her, I’d be the happiest dad in the world,” former SU assistant coach John Marcum said. “She was the best part of (humanity).”

Clad in white, Tiana Mangakahia poses alongside her brothers for a family picture. Growing up, Tiana wanted to do anything and everything that her brothers did. Courtesy of Cynthia Mangakahia

• • •

Adeniyi Amadou’s phone wouldn’t stop buzzing. He couldn’t pick up, and every call went to voicemail. He was in Lyon, France, scouting international recruits during the summer of 2017, fresh off his first year as a Syracuse assistant coach. He didn’t yet feel like the premier international recruiting ace he’d eventually become.

He finally checked his phone. At least 10 missed calls from every coach on SU’s staff. He feared something was wrong. Hesitant to call head coach Quentin Hillsman, he rang Reiss instead between games.

She picked up right away.

“Oh, my God. Tiana’s so good,” Reiss told him. “They just finished playing. She’s so good.”

Tiana had just arrived on campus and “tore everything up” on her first day of pickup, Amadou said. Syracuse’s coaches watched on, admiring the budding superstar they had uncovered.

“Oh, OK. She’s the real deal,” former SU assistant coach Vonn Read recalled thinking. “We’re gonna be pretty good.”

This moment — Tiana at Syracuse, dusting all takers in pickup — wasn’t supposed to happen. Growing up, Tiana wasn’t into school. After graduating from the Australian Institute of Sport, she went professional with the Townsville Fire in the Women’s National Basketball League and worked at McDonald’s on the side.

Seeking more playing time, she followed her friend Kalani Purcell to Hutchinson in 2015, only to find that her WNBL career made her ineligible. Instead, Tiana rode the bench, leading Hutchinson’s scout team and acting as a player-coach during games.

By 2017, she had her degree, and Syracuse needed a point guard after Alexis Peterson’s graduation. Amadou jumped at the chance. On her official visit, the Orange took her to Laci’s Tapas, and the team got to know her afterward through a game of “Never Have I Ever.” Reiss wouldn’t divulge what Tiana said. It certainly left a lasting impression.

“Oh, Lord. I’m gonna have to watch this one,” Reiss thought, listening to Tiana’s tales. “She’s a handful, this girl is.”

Tiana Mangakahia dribbles the ball during Syracuse’s Jan. 21, 2018 contest against Pittsburgh. In her first season at SU, Tiana led the nation with 304 assists. Daily Orange File Photo

Yet, the impression Tiana left on the court was even stronger. In the 2017-18 season, she averaged 17.5 points and a nation-leading 9.8 assists per game, constituting one half of a formidable duo with Miranda Drummond.

Off the court, the two hung out with Nikki Oppenheimer, spending countless hours shopping, making late-night runs to Goldstein Student Center and watching movies in Tiana’s apartment. Drummond preferred branching out with psychological thrillers, while Tiana and Oppenheimer liked familiar rom-coms. The majority usually won.

“You’re gonna fall asleep in three seconds,” Drummond would tell Tiana. “Why can’t I pick? I will stay awake the whole time.”

Her averages barely dropped in the 2018-19 season, but her confidence and dominance surged, Read said. The difference was evident from the outset.

That November, the Orange traveled to Mexico for the Cancun Challenge. Syracuse dispatched Kansas State and Princeton, taking on then-No. 16 DePaul in the final. The squads went to overtime deadlocked at 70.

From that point on, it was all Tiana. She scored 11 of SU’s 13 overtime points, and with the teams tied at 81, she hit a buzzer-beating reverse layup to seal an 83-81 victory for the Orange.

“Nobody’s gonna forget that (layup),” former SU guard Gabrielle Cooper said. “I talked to my friends from DePaul, like Ashton Millender, and she (feels) the same way.”

After the tournament, Drummond went to bed early, absolutely wiped from playing three games in three days. Tiana, on the other hand, didn’t. The next morning, Drummond’s mother — Diane Drummond — entered her daughter’s Hard Rock hotel room to show her a video.

It was Diane and Tiana singing late into the night, performing a duet to a virtually nonexistent audience at the resort’s karaoke bar.

In Syracuse’s Jan. 23, 2019 matchup against Miami, Tiana Mangakahia shoots a free throw. Tiana averaged 16.9 points and 8.4 assists per game as a sophomore, earning her second First-Team All-ACC selection. Daily Orange File Photo

• • •

After a sophomore season that ended with a second First-Team All-ACC selection, she had become one of the country’s best point guards. Tiana was supposed to be in Los Angeles, because people were starting to take note. Kobe Bryant was among them.

That summer, the Lakers’ legend invited her to California to train alongside Oregon guard Sabrina Ionescu, Cynthia said. But two weeks before she was set to go, Tiana found a lump on her breast.

She got tested, and the morning of June 17, 2019, doctors called her with the results. It was stage 2 breast cancer. Drummond had graduated by then, but she was still the first person Tiana called to break the news. There were far more tears than words that morning.

First, Drummond gave Tiana time to inform everyone who needed to know. Then, she drove to Syracuse from her Binghamton home. They sat in Goldstein, silently ruminating, as Drummond resisted every urge in her body to tell Tiana she was sorry for her.

“I feel like it didn’t hit me at the time, what she was telling me,” Drummond said. “Because it was so early, and I just couldn’t believe it.”

Brooke Alexander had a feeling something was wrong. The UT Arlington graduate transfer befriended Tiana on her official visit to Syracuse that June. Tiana played a significant role in Alexander’s ensuing commitment. Since the visit, the two had called every day. They even shared their locations with each other on their iPhones.

When Tiana went radio silent for a few days, Alexander checked her location. Tiana was at an oncology center. Alexander, unsure what “oncology” meant, Googled the facility. Her heart sank when the search results loaded.

With Drummond and Oppenheimer gone, Alexander became one of Tiana’s closest confidants. As chemotherapy attacked her scalp, Tiana sent Alexander pictures of hair clumps. After she tried styling her hair into a bob to no avail, she eventually invited Alexander and some friends to her apartment, where they took turns shaving her head.

“I don’t want to speak for her, but from an outsider perspective, I think that’s when it kind of hit her,” Alexander said about Tiana’s hair loss. “Because it’s a visual representation of what your body’s experiencing.”

Tiana’s family alternated visits throughout that summer, keeping her company as she underwent treatment. When Cynthia and Terei visited, she took them to Destiny USA. Standing in the mall, Tiana had what Alexander described as a panic attack. Her body temperature skyrocketed, she grabbed her wig off her head and tossed it to the ground. She had to be bald. She just couldn’t wear it anymore.

Cancer took her hair. It didn’t take her happy-go-lucky disposition.

“Well, at least I have a really good shaped head,” Tiana would joke with Alexander. “This is really working out in my favor.”

In one of Alexander’s classes, she was assigned to make a three-minute video profiling an inspirational figure. So, Alexander followed Tiana to appointments and filmed her playing pickup matches after rounds of chemotherapy. At the end of the semester, she submitted her project.

The video ends with Tiana in the hospital, donning a gray medical gown, embracing her teammates after her double mastectomy. Officially cancer-free.

A young Tiana Mangakahia (center) wraps her arms around two of her older brothers. As a child, Tiana loved to shimmy up the light pole in front of her house with her brothers. Courtesy of Cynthia Mangakahia

• • •

It had been a while since Tiana last set foot in the JMA Wireless Dome. In the spring of 2023, she was in France, playing out a temporary contract with Toulouse Métropole Basket in the Ligue Féminine de Basketball in between seasons with the WNBL’s Sydney Flames.

Being back in Australia was good for Tiana. The Flames helped her reconnect with Vanessa Panousis, who she had met back at the AIS. They had become “yin and yang,” Panousis said. Oftentimes, Tiana would make herself comfortable in the Panousises’ Sydney home, as if she’d always been there.

In about a month, Tiana’s Toulouse contract would expire, and she’d rejoin the Flames in Australia. The 2023 FIBA Asia Cup was on the horizon, and she was on the precipice of returning to the Australian National Team. Toulouse was supposed to be an interlude.

At least, if not for her nagging chest pains. They began cropping up that April. Did she get hit? Tiana wasn’t sure, but they just weren’t going away. She got scans. They revealed her breast cancer had returned — now stage 4 — and metastasized, invading her bones and organs.

Tiana retired on June 5, 2023. With a year left on her Flames contract, the team gave her an assistant coaching position, but she didn’t immediately take to the bench.

Early in the 2023-24 season, Sydney hit the road to take on the Melbourne Boomers. That game, Flames head coach Guy Molloy called a timeout, and Tiana wedged her way behind him, blocking several players out of the huddle. It took her a couple of seconds to sheepishly bow out, coming to the sobering realization that she wasn’t a player anymore.

“You would imagine that her having cancer is devastating, crippling and all that,” said Renae Garlepp, who coached with Tiana on the Flames. “But I think that her not playing basketball was way harder than dealing with cancer, as ridiculous as that sounds.”

Eventually, she grew to embrace the role. She mentored young point guards, drilling them on pick-and-roll reads, Garlepp said. Molloy offered for her to return for another season, but doctors urged her to return to Queensland to be near family.

Tiana left the Flames, and she continued working on ticking off items on the bucket list she’d drafted shortly after being rediagnosed.

“She didn’t let what the doctors would tell her affect how she lived life,” Panousis said. “She lived every day to the fullest.”

First off was Queenstown, New Zealand. Family might have been the only thing Tiana loved as much as basketball, so she brought them and Panousis to Queenstown for a week in April 2024. Tiana prospected for gold with her brothers, visited an ice bar, whitewater rafted and skydived — modified to lessen the impact on her chest.

Then it was Santorini, Greece. Cynthia and Terei honeymooned there decades ago, and Tiana grew up hearing stories about it. Panousis has family in Greece, so she arranged for Tiana to join her for 12 days. The two spent most of it in Athens, but budgeted two nights in Santorini to fine dine and marvel at its sunsets.

For over a year, Tiana dreamed about podcasting. She returned from Greece a couple of days before Panousis and immediately began messaging her to kick around the idea. She had already bought the microphones — she just needed her co-host.

Panousis resisted — she wasn’t a talker, initially recommending Tiana podcast solo — but resistance never worked on Tiana.

“Once something was in her mind, and she wanted to do it, she got it done,” Panousis said.

Reluctantly, Panousis agreed to host. They released the first episode of “Life’s a Layup” — aptly named “Practically Twins” — on Aug. 11, 2024, followed by eight installments. It was a surprisingly cathartic experience for Panousis. Sometimes, she goes on Spotify and rewatches their episodes, trying to relive memories she knows will never die.

Several months later, Tiana kicked off the new year by joining her family and Panousis on her first-ever cruise, a week-long excursion to Vanuatu and New Caledonia. On that cruise, Terei recalls, Tiana once convinced her brothers to lend her $100 to play blackjack, boasting about her skills. By the end of the night, she walked away $200 poorer.

“Remember,” Cynthia told her that night. “The house always wins, T.”

When she wasn’t on holiday, Tiana coached her niece and nephew — Kaylee and Aven Mangakahia — at Faith Lutheran College Redlands. She was also the head coach of the Southern District Spartans’ Youth League 1 team. Her coaching career — as well as adopting her dog, Chip — represented Tiana’s desire to be responsible for something other than herself, Cynthia said.

Tiana Mangakahia poses with her nieces and nephews at a WNBL game. Over the final year of her life, Tiana coached her niece and nephew — Kaylee and Aven Mangakahia — at Faith Lutheran College Redlands. Courtesy of Cynthia Mangakahia

In March, Tiana celebrated her 30th birthday in Hawai’i with her brother, Brandon Mangakahia. Her world tour concluded with a stop in Bali in September, accompanied by Panousis and other friends. They spent time relaxing — Tiana received at least two massages per day, Panousis said — and enjoying the city’s food.

Suddenly, that trip was cut short by a day. Tiana’s physical condition was deteriorating, and she called Garlepp when she returned to Australia. She told her there was nothing the doctors could do. She was going to die, and she wanted Garlepp to visit her.

Tiana refused to die at home. She didn’t want her family to associate the house with such a traumatic memory, Cynthia said, so she insisted on going to a palliative care facility. Three days before her death, she moved into her temporary abode.

Garlepp came to visit her the next day. Panousis had already been in Queensland for a week, searching for closure in her final conversations with Tiana. They both knew what was happening, but it still broke Panousis to hear her best friend say she was ready.

At that point, Tiana didn’t fear death anymore. She only feared the inevitable suffering she would leave behind, and the grief her family would have to reckon with.

By the time Garlepp entered the facility, Tiana was unresponsive. Her friends and family did the talking for her. They laughed and shared stories, and Garlepp found peace knowing Tiana had done just about everything she set out to do.

“She literally did everything she wanted to do,” Garlepp said. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Her brother, Jordan Mangakahia, whipped out his guitar. He delicately plucked its strings, playing “Fast Car” by Tracy Chapman — one of her favorites. Everyone began to sing along. How Tiana would’ve loved to see it, all of her favorite people singing all of her favorite songs. They knew her hearing would be the last sense to go, so they sang and sang and sang some more. Peacefully, Tiana laid in bed. Right then, if only for a brief moment, she was still there with them, listening to each word that left their mouths.

Design by Ilana Zahavy | Presentation Director
Courtesy of SU Athletics | Renae Garlepp | Cynthia Mangakahia | Nikki Oppenheimer

Published on December 11, 2025 at 1:05 am